


What I Have To Do

by VirginiaBlack517



Category: Lost Girl
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon Universe, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Succubus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:29:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 57,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VirginiaBlack517/pseuds/VirginiaBlack517
Summary: Dr. Lauren Lewis loves Bo Dennis above all others, and will do anything to keep Bo safe. Bo is a succubus, with a Fae lifespan that could last hundreds of years, but Lauren is human. How far will Lauren go to spend an eternity with the woman she loves? (Story in canon, runs parallel to storyline from S4x06 through S5x16. Doccubus endgame.)





	What I Have To Do

 

**PROLOGUE**

-Excerpt from the journal of Dr. Lauren Lewis-

_It should never have come to this, but here I am. I have broken nearly every vow I swore to uphold. I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen, I have played God and by my actions, sentenced someone to death - in every conceivable way, I have let myself sink to the very depths of what little humanity I have left. I deserted my friends, my family - I have done things for which I can never be forgiven, and I can never take them back. And now, the final straw - I have been overtaken by a powerful Fae, and forced to stand against my lover._

_Worst of all, I have hurt Bo, and I'm about to do it again. She has the fate of the whole world in her hands, and I have been a dangerous distraction. And so, even though my heart is breaking, and though she may never forgive me for leaving her, I must break things off with her. Stopping Jack is too important, and I have clearly demonstrated that I am a weak link. I won't be the thing that causes her to fail. My dreams of forever with her are just that - dreams - and I must wake up and realize that there is no room in this world for a happily ever after. I cannot be Fae and keep myself - my real and human self - intact._

_I will take the antidote that will restore my humanity, all my Fae conduit capabilities will cease, and then, I will tell Bo what must be. She won't forgive me, but she'll move on. I have seen her do this before - with me, with Hale, with Kenzi. She will set her broken heart aside to do what must be done to win the war. And I believe, above all else, that she will win. That's what she does - and who she is. She is a warrior. It's one of the many reasons why I love her._

_I may find peace at some point in my life, though I cannot possibly atone for what I've done. I may even find companionship before I take my last breath, but I must say this._

_My heart and soul will never love another the way I love Bo, though she can never be mine._

**SEVERAL MONTHS AGO**

Lauren stepped out of the cab after paying the driver, and stood alone on the sidewalk, heart in her throat. The driver quickly drove away, leaving Lauren alone at this late hour, standing before the monolithic building downtown in the heart of Dark Fae territory.

It had only been two days since she'd moved out of her old place in the Light Fae compound, but thanks to her legendary focus and her need to organize everything perfectly, she'd finished unpacking every box in her new loft. Ironically, her new flat in Dark Fae territory was only a handful of blocks from the Dal Riata.

After several hours of boredom - and loneliness, though she didn't want to admit it - she decided that perhaps the late hour was the perfect time to test her access to the Dark science and medical testing facilities. Her plan to help Bo was still forming, but she knew research would be the key, and since her home lab was limited, she needed to find out what kind of equipment would be available to her in the Dark Fae labs. So she'd quickly grabbed a jacket and the badge Evony, Morrigan of the Dark Fae, had given her, and before she could change her mind, called a cab to bring her here.

Now, she could either call another cab and pray they'd pick her up this late in this part of town, or grow a pair and walk into the belly of the beast. There were lights blazing out of the ground floor, and she could see half a dozen well-dressed guards - ogres by the looks of them - inside the building near the rotating glass door that was the only entrance. Lauren's heart rate tripled as one of them looked right at her, raised a hand to his ear and spoke into his wrist. Her courage evaporated, and she reached into her pocket to pull out her cell phone to call that cab, stat.

"Dr. Lewis?"

She jumped as a voice called her from only a few paces away, and she turned quickly to see another ogre, also squeezed into a dark suit, standing calmly nearby.

"May I escort you inside?"

Lauren took a deep breath before she screamed.  _Suck it up, Lewis. Jesus. "_ Inside?"

He frowned, but still made no move towards her. "Yes, Doctor. Are you going to your lab?"

 _I have a lab?_  She took another calming breath that seemed to clear the fog from her mind. Of course, Evony had arranged for a laboratory for her. "Yes," she cleared her throat, then spoke again with more certainty. "Yes, I'm going to my lab."

"I'd be happy to escort you. If you'll come with me?" He extended an arm towards the door, a gesture especially gracious in an ogre, and waited for her to move towards the door.

"Of course."  _Just another day at the office, Lewis. Play along._

The ogre maintained a respectful distance and accompanied her into the building, as if it were an common occurrence for a lone human to show up at Dark Fae headquarters in the middle of the night.

Lauren pulled herself together, and walked confidently into the belly of the beast. Now, there was no turning back.

 

**Chapter 1**

\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -

_I'm not certain how I'll achieve this mission I've set for myself of saving Bo from the Dark. The Morrigan can't be trusted and I must assume that she's watching me at all times. The Light Fae can't help me and will likely apprehend me and turn me over to the Una Mens at first sight unless Evony has made a deal already that I don't know about. The Dark Fae won't trust me right away, and anything I do out of the ordinary will cause suspicion._

_Yet I have to try. Dyson was right - I can never leave the Fae and I will never again by truly free. But Bo…being unaligned is so much a part of who she is that I'm afraid of what she might become if she stays Dark. So Bo must be free, and I will make it so at all costs._

_Even after all these years, there's so much Bo doesn't know about the world of the Fae. Back before her abduction to the Wanderer's train, if she'd made a mistake against the Light, she risked ostracism at best and a quick death at worst. Now that she's Dark, if she crosses the Morrigan...I've heard terrible stories of some of Evony's captives, tortured for years in the Dark dungeons, denied a quick but gruesome death at Evony's hands. Bo cannot end up like that. And it's just a matter of time before Bo does something Evony's twisted sense of allegiance will find unacceptable. Knowing the Morrigan, she would almost certainly make a horrid example out of Bo._

_So I'm staying here, with the Dark. I saw the disappointment in Bo's eyes when I told her, and I'm touched that she and Dyson tried so hard to find me, but it changes nothing. Bo needs someone on the inside, even if she doesn't know what I'm doing. In fact, it's probably best that I not tell her. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and her emotions are always so clearly displayed that no one would ever believe that she wasn't in on it with me if I'm discovered._

_I remember the first time I saw Bo. I thought it was posturing on her part, her arguing with the Ash. But as the Ash and the Morrigan debated over what to do with Bo, I watched only her, tied to her chair, fiercely defiant, surrounded by the most powerful Fae in the colony. It was obvious to me that she was terrified_.  _She feared for her life, had absolutely no idea what was going on, but she was fighting as best as she could._

_I had never seen a braver woman in my life._

_Could that have been the moment that I fell in love with her? For weeks, I thought what I felt for her was purely a biological response to her succubus traits. In fact, I was impressed by how deeply her touch had affected me, and I was convinced that some cellular change had taken place, to make me want her the way I did._

_I was foolish. I knew I was already in love with her when I used the Ash's permission to distract her as an excuse to get what I really wanted. I thought about her all the time. I could always sense when she walked into a room. I wanted to touch her, to feel her, to give everything of myself to her, even though - at the time - all of me wasn't mine to give. Between my commitment to Nadia and my enslavement to the Light, how much did I really have left to offer anyone?_

_-_  END EXCERPT _-_

The sharply dressed ogre, who had introduced himself as Dave, opened a door with a plaque displaying "Dr. Lauren Lewis, MD, PhD" and gestured for her to enter the room first. Automatic lights quickly brightened the large room, and while she had expected a dark, sinister workspace here at the Dark Fae headquarters, she was surprised to find the warm and welcoming decor in tones of cream and pale ocean blue.

"Here you are, Dr. Lewis," Dave said with a smile on his face. "Welcome to Team Dark." He walked out of the room then turned back in the hall. "If you need anything, there are instructions by the phone for dialing down to the front desk. One of us will come running." He left her alone without another word.

Lauren stood motionless for a few moments, hands tucked in her pockets, and then her eyes quickly appraised the room. It was a corner office, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the nearby city streets. She walked to the closest wall of windows, and looked below. From here on the third floor, she could clearly see the street - not that there was anyone on it at this hour.

She turned her back on the view and looked at the rest of the room. A sleek, modern glass desk with a large computer monitor was the focal point of the room - if one could ignore the view - and two pale leather chairs sat in front of the desk near the middle of the room. A large ergonomic chair completed the ensemble, and behind it stood a wall covered entirely by bookshelves, filled with books. Some were references she wasn't surprised to see, but there were several shelves filled with older, leather-bound books she didn't recognize at this distance.

Lauren moved closer and pulled one from the shelf. There were no markings on the outside, so she opened it and her mouth fell open in shock. She held the personal journal of one of the fathers of medical genetics, and another glance at the shelf showed that it was one of a series.

Evony knew how to make a girl feel welcome.

Lauren carefully grabbed several journals and sat down in the chair behind the - no,  _her_  desk. She went to lay them flat on a folder that sat in the center of the desk, but there was a surprising lump in her way. Stacking the journals to the side, she opened a folder that was labeled with her name.

Inside she found login information for the computer, a list of access codes for various laboratories and libraries, a map designating accessible and "restricted" areas, a badge with her photo (when had  _that_  been taken?) and the answer to the mystery of the lump.

Evidently, Team Dark came with a luxury Audi SUV.

Lauren sat back in the not-so-surprisingly comfortable chair, trying to re-orient herself to this new world tipping on its axis.

Six hours later, Lauren stopped her reading and leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes. Blinking away what felt like dry grit, she realized that it was light outside, though still before sunrise, and a glance at her watch revealed that it was almost 6am. She stood up to stretch and noticed that there was another door in her office, on the same wall as the one she where she'd entered. A stylish credenza sat between the two doors, and she saw a pitcher of obviously chilled water, judging by the accumulated condensation.

Lauren walked over and poured herself a glass of water, certain that if Evony wanted to poison her, she'd have found a grander way to do it. Looking down at the top of the credenza, she noticed a decanter half full of a golden-brown liquid. After setting down her water glass, she picked up the decanter, removed the stopper, and raised it to her nose.

 _Huh. Scotch. And damned fine scotch at that._  She raised her eyebrows, then shrugged her shoulders and poured herself a splash to taste for herself. The smoky spirit lightly burned her esophagus and she smiled before guiltily catching herself.  _This isn't fun and games, Lewis. Don't get too attached to the amenities._

After tossing back the rest of the scotch, and then finishing off the water, she turned to the newly discovered door. This one had a small keypad, so she retrieved the information from her desk, then entered the code, opened the door and stepped through to the room on the other side.

"Oh, good morning, Dr. Lewis!"

Lauren pulled up short at the exuberant greeting. "Hello?!" She sounded almost defensive.  _What the hell is he doing here this early?_

A fit, olive-skinned man with a neatly trimmed mustache and beard decorating a bright smile walked quickly towards her with his hand outstretched. "I am so thrilled to meet you!" Lauren was almost taken aback by his enthusiasm. "My name is Sam, and I'm such a fan of your work."

"Oh?" Lauren said, uncomfortable at being so warmly greeted by a stranger. "Um, it's, well, uh - nice to meet you, Sam."

He finally let go of her hand after shaking it profusely. "I can't tell you how excited I am to have you here. I've followed your research on anomalies of human genetics for the last two years, and just finished your latest paper on the oxidative damage of free radicals. It's going to be absolutely awesome to work with you on our projects."

 _The last person who told me they'd read that paper tried to kill my family._  She looked away from his eager smile and gazed around the room.  _Might as well see what they're up to._

"Well, Sam," she said, "Why don't you show me what you're working on?"

 _-_ JOURNAL EXCERPT -

_Since the attack on the Dal at Hale's failed inauguration, humans are in an even more precarious position here in the colony, and my name is at the top of a very short list of those not yet in custody. I suppose I owe the Morrigan for not turning me in, but I can't help but wonder what her plan is, since this witch-hunt was all her idea. Of course, now that the Una Mens have effectively taken over, I'm sure even Evony is on a short leash, but she is a dangerous woman used to immeasurable power and control. She'll do something terrible to regain the status she loves above all else._

_And so, while I have been working in secret on a serum that permanently neutralizes all Fae powers (based on an extended analysis of various samples I've collected of their genus), I've decided that I must focus on Evony's species of Fae first. Something tells me that, some time in the near future, I'll need some insurance._

_Above all else, I must protect Bo, and help her in any way I am capable._

\- END EXCERPT -

"Hey, Dr. Lewis!"

Lauren had just logged out of her system and grabbed her keys to leave for the night when Sam poked his head in from the lab. "Yeah, Sam?"

"That new shipment is in the mailroom. You want me to go grab it?" he asked with a wry smile.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "No, I'll go get it. I'm the one who made a fuss, after all." One of the ogres who worked in the shipping department had been a tad too vigorous with a box of pipettes and coverslips, and she'd vehemently stated that she'd pick up her own deliveries in the future.

Sam's smile never faded. "Ok. Well, have a good night. See you tomorrow!" He disappeared behind the door.

Though she hadn't spent much time yet in her new life, she'd already established a routine. Every day, she woke up without an alarm - though that wasn't all that decadent since she always woke up around 5am. Next, she went to her new office and spent a few hours working in the Dark labs. Then, she'd take a run - rain or shine - before a lunch over her desk and before going back to work until six or seven in the evening.

She hadn't spoken to Bo in days and ached to hear her voice. Lauren's calls and voice mails were unanswered, and Bo's texts were terse and noncommittal. Lauren was starting to get the hint that Bo was still hurt that Lauren had chosen to stay with the Dark, but she wasn't about to let it affect her resolve. No matter how much it pained Lauren herself.

The mailroom was located in a sub-basement near the parking garage on the other side of the building. Lauren figured she could just store the box in the back of her SUV for the night and bring it up when she returned in the morning.

Ten minutes later, she walked into the mailroom and nearly bumped into what appeared to be a harried-looking middle-aged man. As always, Lauren immediately wondered what kind of Fae he was.

"Oh, excuse me, Dr. Lewis."

 _Does everyone know who I am?_  "Pardon me," she smiled politely. "I've come for a package that was delivered today for my lab."

"Yes, yes," he replied hurriedly. "It's right over here with today's arrivals. I called you as soon as it was delivered, but I've been too swamped to check it in yet." He started to walk towards it when a loud crashing sound from the attached storeroom grabbed his attention. A few shouts followed the sudden noise, and he ran towards the commotion. "If you could give me a moment..."

Lauren shrugged. "No need. I'll just grab it and be on my way."

The attendant waved at her without sparing her a look and disappeared into the storeroom.

She walked over to the stack of boxes and spied her shipment of positive-displacement pipettes on top. As she lifted her box off the stack, her eyes glanced across the box below it and froze. She saw Bo's confident and curvaceous script across the large label, addressing the box to Bo herself on the first line, and the Dark archives on the second, followed by the building's address.

 _What the hell?_ Lauren didn't know what to think, but a moment later, she suddenly knew what to do. If this stack of boxes hadn't been checked in yet, no one knew this box was here.

A brief glance around the room revealed that she was alone and there were no discernible surveillance cameras. She eyed the distance to the door, calmly picked up the second box, and quickly made her escape.

Lauren idly wondered if, this time, she'd gone too far.

**Chapter 2**

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_Do I have any dignity left? I don't think so. What the hell was I thinking? Helping her do whatever it took to save Dyson from the Una Mens? I'll admit that I don't despise the man the way I used to, and I meant it when I said he was family and that he certainly didn't deserve whatever terrors he'd most likely endure in their custody. Dyson and I have found some measure of friendship of late and can certainly work together better than in times past, but it pains me how often Bo chooses him over me, yet claims to love me so deeply. I hadn't heard from her in days, and then when I finally did, it was because she needed me to help save him. Again. And what did I do?_

_I came running. That's the way this works - she calls, I come. I can pretend all day long that it's not always going to be that way, but the truth is, if I can help it - and sometimes even when I can't - I will not let her down. Not again - not after that whole debacle with Kenzi and the Kitsune, when I didn't take Bo at her word, and Kenzi nearly died. No matter how much it hurts at times for me to be at Bo's beck and call, that's exactly what I am._

_I can't yet talk about the way I felt when I awoke to her kiss, only to have the first words from her mouth be about him. Yes, I was glad that he would be released, but why is Dyson always so much more important to her than I am? Sometimes, I truly wish I could hate them both, but I can't. If I were to hate Bo, what in this world would I have left?_

_She didn't even tell me about the mark on her chest. I'm hurt that she didn't confide in me, angry that there's something *else* hanging over her head, afraid of what it might mean, and terrified that there's something within my power to save her that I don't yet know, and by missing it, I'm dooming her to an even worse fate than being aligned with the Dark._

_And now, we're back to her not answering my calls and only tersely responding to texts. She's off chasing another lead on the hell shoes, which she is now convinced are the key to solving the puzzle of the Wanderer's train, though I'm not sure how far she'll get. The last four missions have been dead ends, and she grows angrier with each failure. I can't get her to talk to me, and I can't help her when she decides to play super-Fae, so I'll do what I can with the plan I have for myself._

_I need to find out more about this Wanderer, and while I'm at it, I need to find out what are the possible consequences of Bo finding the Helskor._

-  _END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren watched Bo backhand the goblin back a couple of paces. He recovered quickly and roundhoused a kick across Bo's jaw so hard, it knocked Bo to her knees. Lauren stepped forward to help, but was held back by Dyson's arm across her chest.

"Shouldn't we help her?" she asked. Lauren wasn't sure what exactly she could do to help, a human against a goblin, but it was almost intolerable to not do  _something_.

"No, it's good for her," Dyson replied without malice. "She's been so angry, Lauren. I think she needs to get some of this out of her system." Lauren didn't want to listen to him, though she wasn't sure whether that was out of love for Bo or resentment of Dyson, but seconds later, Bo was back on her feet and once more giving as well as she got.

Bo had tracked down a lead to the missing hell shoe that led to this large, empty warehouse on the outskirts of town. Rumor had it, though, that a handful of goblins used it as a lair, so she'd called Dyson for backup. He'd called Hale, and Hale had clandestinely notified Lauren, thinking that perhaps having a doctor on the mission was a good plan.

A scorching heat wave had made Lauren's regularly scheduled mid-day run out of the question, so she'd been in the Dark Fae labs at 4am, and then caught a short run just after dawn. The call from Hale had come mid-morning while Lauren was driving from her office back to her loft, so she was still wearing her a post-workout tank top and jeans until she could get home to change.

Bo hadn't seemed happy to see Lauren, but didn't discount that having the doctor along might be a good idea.

They'd arrived to find only one goblin on the premises, and before anyone could calmly ask him anything, Bo had leapt on him to conduct her own brand of inquiry. Hale had headed outside to keep an eye out for more goblins, Dyson had stayed to act as backup, and Lauren -

Well, Lauren was doing what she felt like she always did. So here she stood in the stifling heat at the periphery of another confrontation, unarmed, and unable to assist while Bo fought another Fae for dominance.

A few moments later, the battle between succubus and goblin was all but over, as Bo repeatedly bashed his head into the cement floor of the warehouse.

"That's going to make it a little tough to get any information out of him," Lauren observed wryly.

Dyson chuckled, then looked up quickly as Hale ran back into the warehouse, three more goblins hot on his trail. "Looks like we've got another shot," he yelled back to Lauren as he ran to intercept the newcomers.

Lauren backed up slowly until she felt the gritty wall of the warehouse against her heated skin. Her eyes wildly tracked the action before her - Hale wrestling what looked like a female goblin, Dyson trading growls and strikes with another male, and Bo demanding answers from what appeared to be the largest goblin of the bunch. He growled his responses, but Lauren couldn't make out any answers at this distance with all the fighting and yelling.

Suddenly, Hale's opponent got the best of him and tossed him several body-lengths across the floor, and then the goblin set her sights on Lauren. Lauren looked around wildly for a weapon, but there was nothing nearby and for a long moment, she watched, speechless, as the goblin grinned wildly, already assuming an easy conquest. Lauren didn't even have time to yell for help.  _Gods, I'm going to die right here and I haven't even told Bo how much I -_

Hale side-swiped the goblin and knocked her to the ground. "I got you, Doc!" He hollered at her with a smile in his voice as he went on the offensive against his foe.

Lauren nearly collapsed in relief.

Dyson dispatched his opponent, then went to help Hale. In another handful of minutes, it was over. Lauren looked over at Bo to see her kicking the lead goblin in the torso and cursing vehemently. Bo stood glaring at the unmoving goblin, so clearly furious, the rest of them gave her a wide berth while she pulled herself together.

Finally, Bo turned to walk towards Lauren and the others.

"Did he give up anything valuable?" Dyson asked, nodding towards the unconscious goblin Bo'd fought last.

Bo scowled as if she tasted something sour. "He didn't know jack shit." She wiped her hands off on her pants and checked the sheath of her knife. "And I think he was the brains of the outfit since the others couldn't even speak."

There was a long moment of silence while they all processed the fact that they'd come to another dead end.

"Well, then, let's get out of here, before any more show up." Lauren said.

They walked out of the warehouse and climbed slowly back into Bo's car, Lauren in the passenger seat next to Bo. As Bo reversed the car from where she'd parked it, and turned towards the road, Lauren gasped as she saw the goblin leader run out of the building and block their path to escape.

"Where are you going, succubus?" The goblin roared in frustration and anger. "We're supposed to be on the same side, but you bring your Light Fae friends here and a human you won't share." He glared at Lauren, then looked back at Bo. "I don't care  _what_  the Morrigan says. I will kill you, then the wolf and the siren, but I know you like that human best so I'll save her for last. I will tear every last piece of flesh from her bones and laugh while I eat it."

Lauren didn't believe it would actually happen, but her blood ran cold at the threat. She shrank back in her seat and dared a look at Bo. What she saw raised goosebumps on her skin despite the heat.

Bo's face showed no emotion, but her eyes glowed so brightly blue, they were nearly white. She quickly shifted the car into gear and, in mere seconds, raced the Camaro forward until she slammed into the goblin's midsection, and deliberately crashed into the wall behind him. A splatter of blood suddenly blocked the view through the windshield, and Lauren looked away in disgust.

Bo reversed the car, slammed it forward again, then repeated the sequence over and over until the goblin had too many broken bones to hold itself onto the hood of the car, and slid to the ground, dead. Surprisingly to Lauren, Dyson and Hale never said a word.

Lauren tried not to stare at Bo in shock. She had seen Bo kill before, but not like this.

_Dear gods, what is happening to her?_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

A short while later, Bo had driven to a gas station near the clubhouse. While everyone else piled out to grab something cold from the convenience store next door, Bo had insisted on cleaning the underfae mess off her beloved car, though Hale tried to convince her to put it off until the next day since he was eager to get back to Bo and Kenzi's place for a party this evening.

Now Lauren stood still on the sidewalk next to the station's garage, perspiration running down her back, ice cream held firmly in one hand, with the late afternoon sun beating down on her head. Finding shade from the heat, however, was the last thing on her mind.

She couldn't move.

Transfixed, Lauren watched Bo's every move. Some logical part of her brain was still observing the entire scene, capable enough to note that the Camaro was blocking one driveway and no other customers could pass, that it was utterly  _ridiculous_  for Bo to wash a convertible with the top down, that this was neither the time nor the place to watch Bo with such open and unadulterated lust, but Lauren was frozen.

She wanted Bo. Desperately.

Lauren knew what those hands, those lips, that  _body_ could do to her. She'd never experienced such stupefying sexual connection in her life, and before that first time they'd touched, Lauren hadn't even known such pleasures were possible. Even when Bo didn't use her singular biology to her advantage, she was still the most perfect specimen of woman Lauren had ever set eyes on, and the guilt Lauren felt at recognizing that fact was sometimes stifling.

Her discomfort for just a moment was colored by shame. It was an old shame, so she didn't wonder or reminisce at its source but let it wash over her. Back when she'd attempted to reconcile with Nadia after her girlfriend awakened from the cursed coma, there had been no chance that Nadia would get the best from Lauren. The truth was that Lauren had already given her heart to Bo.

The shame she'd felt at lying to them both - Nadia and herself - was an old adversary that showed up at the most inopportune of times. Like now. So she stood, and stared, and disliked herself a bit for not being able to help it all.

Bo lazily guided the large sponge over her precious car, a look of distracted adoration on her face.

Lauren felt lightheaded, her limbs heavy, her clothes too tight and far too restricting. She felt her pulse in places she didn't dare acknowledge, and she couldn't breathe air in fast enough to clear her head.

She watched Bo's sinuous limbs, her blessed curves, her wickedly capable hands. Bo's mouth fell open at her effort, scrubbing across a particularly difficult spot, and when she licked her lips, Lauren almost cried out.

At that point, Lauren realized that there was something seriously wrong with her. No human being should hunger for another the way she ached for Bo, particularly since there was nothing to be done about it. Bo clearly wanted nothing to do with her - had said not a word about the kiss they'd shared just days before - so all of this, this  _pining_ for the woman was utterly wasted.

Bo strolled along the side of the Camaro, rinsing soap from the frame with the grimy gas station hose.

Lauren watched every single motion with both scientific admiration of perfection and purely carnal obsession with the unattainable, ice cream and heat forgotten.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Several hours later, far past midnight, Lauren navigated her sleek car through the dark and deserted city streets. Considering she was driving under the influence - though the buzz had long since faded - that was probably a good thing.

She steadfastly ignored Vex's prattling about his hand. Yes, she'd reattached it while intoxicated, and yes, it was backwards, but if she thought too closely about why she'd attempted it in the first place, given her current inebriated state, she'd probably go mad.

Vex had cut off his own hand after the Una Mens poisoned it in punishment. Once removed, whatever curse the Una Mens had put on the limb had vanished, so Vex had taken to walking around with it in a bag of ice. At tonight's Yule festivities, Vex, Lauren and Dyson had ended up in Bo's room in the clubhouse, debating in futility about what to do with the box Lauren had stolen from the Dark.

She'd lost count of how many times she'd opened it to gaze fearfully on the swirling black smoke within.

When the liquor had run out, Lauren had drunkenly offered to reattach Vex's limb…and lost track of Dyson and the box in the process. For all she knew, Dyson had given it to Bo already. She prayed Bo didn't do something rash, then realized that Bo would likely blindly jump into the rashest action possible.

Once parked in the subterranean garage, she got out of the car quickly, closing the door on Vex's continued complaints, and walked around to help him out of the vehicle since he wasn't exiting himself. After closing the door behind him and locking the car, Lauren guided him across the parking lot. It took him a few moments to notice his surroundings.

"Wait," he stopped walking, and resisted Lauren's attempts to get him moving forward again. "Why aren't we at the Dark Tower?"

"We're at my place." Lauren successfully pulled him towards the elevator. "I've got everything I need here and no one will see us."

He looked at her incredulously, trying to focus on her face but, in actuality, managed only to lean a bit to one side. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." And she was - in her loads of spare time, she'd studied quite a bit on the latest anti-surveillance technologies, and was putting the results of that research to good use in her loft. If Evony pushed back on her lack of supervision, Lauren could always claim that she was tired of living under a microscope. It was certainly true.

Once in the elevator, Vex resumed whining about his treatment at the hands of the Una Mens, but by the time they reached Lauren's floor, she realized it wasn't whining at all. Vex was confiding in her. In addition to his confidence, he'd yet to reprimand her about the failed reattachment of his hand.

She was starting to realize she'd grown a little affection for Vex. That thought gave her a moment's pause. It was getting harder and harder to remember that this man was singularly responsible for the death of children. And if she could forgive him such an atrocity, what did that say about her?

Lauren was getting a lot of practice at the fine art of pushing things she didn't want to think about out of her mind.

As she guided them to the sliding double-width steel door of her flat, she took a moment to reevaluate what she was about to do. Right now, this loft was the only refuge left to her, and no one had set foot in it besides Lauren. Of all the people she thought she'd welcome here, the Mesmer was the absolute last person on the list.

The moment of truth came, and thankfully, Vex was too incapacitated to recognize how long it lasted. Finally, Lauren pulled out her keys and reached to open the door.

While she didn't trust Evony, and she surely didn't trust anyone in the Dark labs, oddly, she trusted Vex.

Once inside, she led him to the long, gray upholstered couch in the middle of the main room, and not unkindly pushed him down. He never stopped talking as she walked around the loft, collecting all the materials she'd need to perform the surgery. Then, she injected herself with a sobering cocktail of B-vitamins and other agents designed to neutralize the remaining liquor in her system.

It didn't change the fact that she was going to foolishly attempt to perform a surgery - for the second time tonight - that would best be done in a traditional operating theater, but it certainly cleared her head enough that she could appreciate the foolishness more fully.

She carried a stainless steel tray with her instruments over to the coffee table and set it down, then pulled a nightstand with a lamp closer to the arm of the couch. Gently, she raised Vex's arm to the side table and tilted the lampshade so she could get a closer look.

"What the hell are you playing at, love?" Vex squinted at her, still high from the various intoxicants at the clubhouse's party. "You aren't really Dark and we both know it."

Lauren ignored him.

"Now, I'm not an idiot, so I know it's got something to do with the succuslut -"

He paused at the glare he received at his word choice, but continued on as if he hadn't received the visual reprimand.

"She's a feisty and capable one, our Bo, but she's always a bit see-through with her intentions." He stared at Lauren as if he could see inside her head, long enough that Lauren started to wonder if he could. "You, Doc, are a different animal altogether, though, aren't ya?"

Lauren didn't respond and continued arranging the items on the tray.

"What was in the box, Doc?"

She sighed, and contemplated not answering his question, but chose honesty instead.

"I don't know," she said with mild exasperation and picked up a pair of nitrile gloves. At least this surgery would be somewhat more sterile than the last.

"Don't give me that. You know you opened it, I know you opened it - so what was in it?" Vex wasn't badgering, but he was certainly persistent.

Lauren tossed the gloves back down in frustration. "I really don't know. I saw what was in it, but I've no idea what it was."

She looked him in the eye and didn't waver from his remarkably steady gaze. Lauren felt as if he was measuring her worth.

"I thought a lot about the way things are when I was trussed up on the Una Mens chopping block," he said, matter of factly, and for a moment, he seemed almost sober. "The real players on both sides. The ones who aren't exactly what they seem to be." He looked around her loft for a moment, as if interested in the decor. "You have more than proven yourself over and over again whenever the shit hits the fan, whether the Fae want to recognize it or not, so know that as long as we don't cross paths, you've nothing to worry about from me."

His eyes moved to pin her in place before he spoke again. "You don't want to answer my questions, so I'll reach my own conclusions, but don't think you're fooling anyone." He leaned forward to make sure she was listening. "You are up to something, and I for one will be supremely disappointed when the Morrigan finds out and reduces you to a pile of bubbling rubbish, so watch your ass."

She stared at him, bewildered. It sounded like Vex was saying he actually held Lauren in high esteem, which was an interesting turn of events, indeed.

He exhaled and looked away. "For what it's worth, I think that, knowing you, whatever you're doing is probably the right thing, so…" Vex looked at her again and wriggled his eyebrows. "Since you fixed up my arm in the Garuda's madhouse, and you're about to right the wrong done to my eating hand, I'm willing to owe you a favor."

Lauren leaned back in shock. Vex would owe  _her_ a favor?

He smiled wickedly. "I am willing to offer m'self up in trade and see what all the fuss is about. Assuming, of course, that you're a natural blonde."

_And we're back to normal._

"Thanks, Vex," she said wryly, "but, no thanks. I prefer my indebted conquests without Y chromosomes."

He laughed, and once again seemed drunk off his ass. "Oh, gold star lesbian, are you? Not surprised, really, though the offer of a favor stands."

Lauren shook her head as she adjusted the lamp, and made sure all of her instruments were at the ready. She picked up a syringe filled with a clear liquid.

"We're doing this right this time."

He looked at her warily, but saw her steady gaze and steadier hands and moved his arm towards her to comply. "Hit me with the good stuff, Doc."

Less than a minute later, Vex was out cold, his head resting on the back of her couch, his mouth wide open.

Lauren was surprised that the anesthetic serum had worked so quickly on a Fae of his power.  _Maybe I should keep some of this on hand for those tricky situations._ She couldn't very well carry a gun or some other weapon, and she had no experience at all with close quarters combat.  _Might have helped with that goblin this morning._

She leaned forward, picked up a scalpel and got to work.

\- XX - XX - XX - XX —

Back in the Dark's headquarters two nights later, Lauren looked at the bottom corner of her computer display and saw that it was after 11pm. Now that she was aware of the late hour, she felt abruptly fatigued and rubbed at her irritated eyes.  _Just another Tuesday at the office._

Her days were filled with the various projects in the Dark labs, though many of them were rather trivial in nature. An odd skin disorder peculiar to nymphs, a strange genetic mutation experienced only by Dullahans - the work was interesting, but didn't provide much of a challenge.

Still it gave her something to do, and she did admit it was almost fun working with Sam. She had yet to see the man upset or angry or even piqued for that matter. He seemed unflappable. He always welcomed her with a smile, he was encouraging when test results didn't come back the way they'd hoped, and he offered - every day, in fact - to take her to lunch.

So far, she'd politely declined every invitation.

Lauren had often considered the possibility that Sam was a plant from Evony, but he never pried. He never once asked her a question that wasn't related to some project they were working on, he didn't ask about her life outside of work besides the normal pleasantries, never mentioned the Light or Dark Fae, and never  _once_ asked about Bo. This was particularly odd since - as Lauren had certainly experienced more than once -  _everyone_  talked about Bo.

If he was undercover for the Morrigan, Sam was the best spy on the planet.

And so Lauren chose to simply enjoy the camaraderie that Sam offered. If her acquaintance with Sam didn't offer the level of friendship she so desperately needed, at the very least it provided a bit of levity and companionship in her life that was sorely missing.

Lauren saved her work on the computer, locked her screen and turned off the display. She stood, and since she was alone, permitted herself a wide stretch of her arms and back. Moments later, she'd finished her now-typical end of the day tasks and headed for the door.

She noted that the pitcher of water on the credenza was once again full. Oddly, she never saw anyone in her office, but every time she came in, there was a fresh pitcher of iced water. While she supposed it was meant to be a courtesy, she was unnerved by the mystery.

On the drive home, Lauren considered stopping by the Dal for a drink, then quickly rejected the idea. She didn't want another inquisition from Trick, she didn't need another interrogation from Dyson or Kenzi, and Tamsin just annoyed her. The truth was, she just wanted to accidentally on purpose run into Bo, which was a terrible reason to make the trip.

Their last exchange, via text of course, had been unpleasant for Lauren. Bo wanted to know more about the mysterious box Lauren had stolen from the Dark, but Lauren didn't have any answers for her. Bo accused her of hiding information, but Lauren insisted, truthfully, that she didn't have any information to give. She wished she did. It was, after all, her whole purpose for being with Dark in the first place.

Bo was once again incommunicado.

When Lauren reached the door of her flat, there was a large grocery box waiting outside the door. The weekly delivery had been made in her absence - another way that she was avoiding people as of late. Once inside, she walked to the kitchen area to set the box down on the counter, and for a moment, stared at her dark loft.

She was tired, she was lonely, and she was lost.

Lauren scoffed silently and began to put the grocery items away.  _Now, whose fault is that?_  She had created this solitary life for herself, and there was nothing to be done but see it through. She loved Bo, but she couldn't be with her. And as of late, Bo was becoming a completely different woman - frustrated, quick to anger, unable to see reason or suffer criticism of any kind. Lauren had no idea how to re-establish a connection with the woman she loved, and it was breaking her heart.

Sam was a great person to work with, but they were not friends. Kenzi and Dyson were friends - of a sort - but she often felt as if she were merely being tolerated by the pair, and the only thing they all had in common was that they each loved Bo. Hale was a former Ash, and a darling of the Light Fae, so he was absolutely off-limits. Tamsin was…well, Tamsin.

There was no one to confide in, no one she could turn to in moments of loneliness or doubt. Lately, loneliness and doubt were constant companions.

Lauren poured herself an over-full glass of wine, and drank it far too quickly to enjoy the taste. She tried desperately to turn off her brain, and trudged off to bed.

A few hours later, after her regularly scheduled nightmares had woken her and biology had called her to the bathroom, she stood in the faint light from the doorway and looked at her reflection in the mirror. The dark circles below her eyes were more visible, and her cheekbones more prominent, her hair thinner than she remembered. It was easier to look at the features of her face than to look into the eyes.

When she could bear to look at them, they seemed darker to her, cold and flat. If she looked a little longer, the pain would become visible. That was when she'd have to look away.

_Work. Get back to work, Lewis._

She quickly returned to her bedside, donned faded sweatpants with the Yale emblem on the side of one thigh then pulled a threadbare Vulcan Science Academy t-shirt over her head. Less than a minute later, she switched on the lights in the small but extensively supplied laboratory in her loft.

She turned to her standing desk, entered the password for her encrypted drive, and loaded Evony's analytics once again.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren sat, alone, at the end of the bar in the Dal, twirling a rock glass of scotch in one hand. Behind her, Dyson uncharacteristically paced the length of the bar while Kenzi actually wiped down empty tables at Trick's direction.

It felt like a wake.

Hours before, Bo had opened the box that Lauren had stolen from the archives, after telling them that she was going mad wondering what had happened on the Wanderer's train.

Wondering how she'd come to be Dark Fae.

In that moment, Lauren had sided with Dyson, and agreed that Bo should open the jar that had been in the box. They both recognized that Bo was on a dark path that would lead nowhere good if she didn't get some answers.

But when the black cloud of smoke within spilled out of the jar and turned into Hugin, a raven shifter who openly admitted to working with the Wanderer and kidnapping Bo in the first place, Lauren's fear grew. She and Dyson had demanded they accompany Bo, but Bo insisted they stay. Then, they'd tracked Bo and Hugin to a graveyard, where they were met by more raven shifters, only to be left behind by Bo yet again.

A few hours go, Dyson and Lauren had returned after their failed attempt to pursue Bo. One look at the two of them, and Kenzi and Trick hadn't even bothered to ask questions. Trick merely poured everyone's drink of choice, and went about the business of cleaning and tending the bar. Kenzi had volunteered to help - a testament to her own fear.

So, they'd come back to the Dal to wait, and to pretend that there was no possibility that Bo would permanently end up on the Wanderer's train, never to be seen again.

Then Bo had returned, and brought Rainer with her, just moments after Trick had revealed that he'd discovered Rainer was his mortal enemy. And then everything had gone straight to hell. The whole scene played over and over again in Lauren's mind as she nursed the scotch in her glass.

_Lauren: Did you just say destiny?_

_Trick: If you have something to settle, settle it with me, not my granddaughter._

_Bo: Did you not hear what I just said?_

_Kenzi: He's brainwashed you!_

_Lauren: Look, what is going on? How do you know this man?_

_Bo: Can you please trust me, any of you?_

_Dyson: I'll take care of this. Bo, get back!_

_Bo: No, you need to get back. All of you._

Now, Bo and Rainer were gone, Kenzi was slamming shots at the other end of the bar, and Trick was wiping down the same set of glassware for the third time tonight. Dyson made another about face, and paced an umpteenth groove into the floor.

Lauren closed her eyes tightly against the tears that would no doubt drown her if she let them fall. Once again, some bearded pretty boy stood between her and the woman she loved and tonight, there wasn't a damned thing she could do about it.

She tossed back the last of her scotch, and stood up from her stool at the bar. She was fed up and confused and angry and hurt and, frankly, fucking exhausted. Just this one time, she'd had enough. Just for tonight, she'd allow herself the precious luxury of throwing in the goddamned towel.

"Where are you going?" Dyson asked, and it seemed that he was ready to follow her, assuming that she was going after Bo and Rainer.

Lauren headed for the door. "I'm going home. There's jack shit I can do tonight, and I'm exhausted, which means I'm no good to anyone. I'm getting some sleep before I try once again to bang my head against the wall that is Bo Dennis."

She didn't look back. No one tried to stop her.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_She begged, she pleaded with me to trust her, but how can I? She has chosen that man over her family, her friends - over me - and because of him, she has sacrificed the one ideal I thought inviolable. She claims that she willingly and of her own accord chose Dark. She chose against her Light Fae family, and willingly gave up the core of who she has been for all the time I've known her._

_Yes, I've chosen to stay Dark to help her, to try to save her, but to find out now that_   **he**  is  _the reason why we're where we are, and that she chooses him above all others? That it wasn't Vex or Evony that somehow maneuvered her to the Dark, but Bo herself? It doesn't just sting. It burns._

_And dear gods, with that man by her side, Bo has killed the Una Mens. I'm not mourning them - they were hunting me and every human in the colony who was in any way connected to the Fae. It was the second time in my life I was on the run, only this time, I wasn't actually a terrorist._

_But she has left a void in the Fae hierarchy that can only bode ill for everyone._

_I'm scared for her. Yes, I'm angry and hurt that she's chosen Rainer, but more importantly, I am afraid of who and what she will become if she continues on this path to what she thinks is her destiny._

_Worse yet, if she's right, and her place is by Rainer's side, what's to become of me?_

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It was late afternoon a few days later when Lauren arrived at her destination. The streets were nearly deserted here on the outskirts of Dark Fae territory near the de-militarized zone between the two factions, so there was no one to notice her dark, luxury SUV and report back to anyone.

Moments later, she stood, dressed entirely in black, outside the oddly shaped, foreboding and nearly dilapidated building here in the warehouse district. Even though hours remained until sundown, a lone green light marked the double door of the entrance. She looked up and down the street once more before walking into the building.

Inside, the foyer was sparse and clean, with no decoration on the stone walls, the air cool and dry. She took a deep breath and walked forward to a second set of doors, steeled herself and walked in.

She quietly closed the door behind her, and stopped just inside the door to the large open area, perhaps thirty or forty paces across, with three levels of wooden bench seating built in a circle around the otherwise empty room. Flaming sconces were mounted on the walls every ten paces or so, and a large skylight in the ceiling allowed a huge beam of sunlight to shine through the room and paint the large, empty floor.

There were half a dozen people in the room, but no one spoke to her in greeting. In fact, no one spoke at all. She'd only heard rumors of this place, but today of all days, she was moved to dig deeper and find out if it truly existed.

Legends said that, several generations back, someone had secured the space and quietly spread the word that it was always open, and always available. The rules were simple, and if the legends were true, completely unbroken. All were welcome, none were allowed to speak when here, and none were to speak of who they saw in this space.

Its purpose was simple - it was a safe place for Dark Fae to mourn their lost Light Fae relatives and comrades. For over two hundred years, those who had heard of the death of Light Fae loved ones - and who were not welcome or able to attend Light Fae services - could come and mourn in silence without judgement or repercussion.

For once, Lauren was grateful for Dark Fae rules, because she needed this place badly. She took a seat in the middle row not too far from the doors, and stared at the dust motes floating in the sunlight near the center of the room.

Word had spread of the death of Hale Santiago of House Zamora. There were rumors that the Morrigan had arranged for his death, and a few whispers that the young Druid had actually done the deed, but no one knew for sure. Lauren bitterly wondered if Rainer was somehow involved, but had no proof.

All Lauren knew was that Hale was dead, and because he had once been the Light Fae Ash, and she was now aligned with Dark, her presence at his service - scheduled for the next day - would not go unnoticed. If she attended, the Morrigan would question whether she had truly cut ties with her previous allies. And now, more than ever, Lauren needed Evony to believe that she was Dark. There was too much at stake for the Morrigan to believe otherwise.

Not if Lauren was going to keep Bo safe.

For a long while, Lauren sat in the silence and mourned the man she'd known. Though she'd thought him a friend at one point, he hadn't released her from her debt to the previous Ash. She knew he'd cared for Kenzi, and that Kenzi had loved him, but Lauren had feared that the power of being Ash would change him. Her fears were now moot.

He had, though, always treated her with a modicum of respect, and if he didn't actually value her position or the weight of her enslavement, he certainly valued her knowledge. He had a great sense of humor, and seemed like a warm and generous person. She smiled to herself when she thought that, frankly, he wasn't bad for a Fae. All things considered, that was high praise.

A moment later, the thought brought a tear to her eye when she realized that, even though he was the kindest Fae she'd ever dealt with, he was still Fae, and had treated her like the human chattel she was. Soon, that was all she could think about - that she was forever indebted to this race of beings that would never see things her way, see the possibility of the wonderful world that could be if Fae and humans could truly work together.

Which, of course, led her thoughts back to Bo. Always Bo.

Then the tears fell in earnest, because where was Bo? With Rainer.

She sat in the darkening room until the sunbeams grew thin and finally faded. Dusk gave way to twilight, and then night as the light of the sconce flames took over. Mourning gave way briefly to despair, and that quickly grew to frustration and finally anger.

Damn it, who was this Rainer? Why wasn't there more information available about the Wanderer? There had to be a record somewhere. She'd never be able to get into Trick's journals, and it would be nearly impossible to get into the Light compound to try to track down the old Ash's archive, but maybe Evony -

She raised her head sharply, her tears long dried. The Deep Archives. She had complete access to the Dark Archives, and while she'd limited her previous research to the more modern and extensive scientific rows, there was a complete historical section - and an almost ancient sub-library called the Deep Archives - that she'd yet to visit.

She drew a deep breath and stood up to leave. Lauren did not - for a single second - believe that Bo had made her choice freely. Too much was happening too quickly, and she didn't believe in coincidence either, which meant Rainer was somehow behind it all. There wasn't a puzzle she had ever faced that she couldn't solve, and now, she'd figure out exactly what that bastard wanted with Bo.

 

**Chapter 3**

Once again, Lauren was running low on sleep.

For the last three days, she'd spent all of her waking time in one of two places - her laboratory at the loft working on the anti-Fae agent, or the archives, searching for information about Rainer. Sam had texted her a couple of times with updates from the lab, but didn't ask when she'd return. She was glad he hadn't - she had no idea how to answer.

Lauren feverishly wrote in her journal, then abruptly threw the pen down in disgust. She kept coming back to the same point, and could not let it go. The very thought of Bo being manipulated into choosing the Dark…There was no way that the Bo she knew - and loved with every cell in her body - would make that choice.

Frankly, Lauren had given up on her own freedom long ago. One way or another, her life would always be tainted by some aspect of the Fae world, and as a human who knew that world existed, her life was forfeit. But Bo...

Her eyes and fists were tightly shut as she seethed with anger.  _Think, Lewis, think._ Bo, however, must remain free at all costs, and for Bo, that meant being unaligned. It was the truth of who she was, and nothing should change that, unless Bo knew something she wasn't telling anyone - or at least, not anyone in her chosen family.

Her destiny. That's what Bo kept repeating - that Rainer was her destiny. Of all the things they'd shared over the years, Bo had never mentioned this, so she must have discovered it on the Wanderer's train.  _Where was that written?_

Lauren had searched and searched, and spent so many hours in the archives that the attendant barely glanced at her when she showed up. So far, she had found nothing. If it was predestined, then it was written down somewhere. And if it was written down, then it  _had_  to be in the archives.

_Whatever he's up to, he must be stopped. At any cost._

She decided to grab a couple of hours of sleep and then head back to the archives. Having had success on one front already today, she was certain she was close to solving this other challenge.

Earlier that day, she had isolated all the superhuman characteristics of the Leanan Sidhe - Evony's species of Fae - when compared to a human control, and successfully suppressed those factors in a way that made the sample appear completely human. The final tests were conclusive. She then concentrated the formula to a single one milliliter dose, and only two problems remained.

First, the serum was designed for Evony's species alone, and since Evony was the only Leanan Sidhe that Lauren knew, there was no way to test its efficacy on anyone but Evony herself, so Lauren wasn't completely certain that it would work.

And more importantly, if she took a single step towards Evony holding a syringe, Lauren would be dead in seconds.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It was almost 9am when Lauren first opened her eyes the next morning, hours after she usually woke up. She leapt out of bed and headed for the shower, anxious about the time, even though she only reported to herself. Once dressed, she grabbed her keys and phone, and headed out the door.

Half an hour later, Lauren sat at her desk, reviewing a data summary from Sam, when her office door suddenly opened.

"If you need help finding something in the archives," Evony said as she grandly entered the office without knocking, "I do have an archivist, you know." She smiled sweetly at Lauren, who was trying very hard  _not_  to look like a deer caught in headlights. "All you have to do is ask."

Belatedly, Lauren returned the smile, and cast her eyes down in a way that she hoped came across as coy.

"I appreciate that, and will no doubt take advantage of the offer if I need it, but I'm not looking for anything in particular." Lauren looked up and squarely met Evony's measuring gaze.

Evony walked across the room, and right into Lauren's personal space, to lean a hip against Lauren's desk and smile down at her. "Well, from what I hear, Doctor, you're spending a lot of time looking for 'nothing in particular'."

Lauren stared at the Morrigan, and fought the urge to lean back - in fact, she forced herself to lean slightly forward. "Honestly, Evony, I'm trying to get the lay of the land down there  _before_ I need anything. It'll make it a lot easier to find things if I'm ever under a deadline." She sighed, and hoped Evony bought what she was trying to sell. "I spent five years with the Light, and after all that time, I knew where to look if I needed something. I don't have that experience here. If we have a crisis of some sort, I don't want to get caught with my pants down."

The blush that followed that slip of the tongue didn't need to be faked.  _Christ, Lewis. Just set her up, why don't you?_

Evony grinned slyly. "Well, we wouldn't want that, now, would we?" She mock whispered conspiratorially.

Lauren couldn't help the small smile that crossed her face, though it was more at her own embarrassment than at Evony's flirtation. "If you don't mind, I'm in the middle of something here. Elder Wygant sent over some spores for analysis, and Sam and I have a bit of a deadline." Hopefully, name dropping one of the Dark Elders would get the Morrigan out of her office.

"So dedicated!" Evony smiled and reached to rest a hand on Lauren's shoulder.

Lauren tried not to flinch.

"Well, that's why you're paying me the big bucks," Lauren joked. It was somewhat true - a generous monthly stipend was yet another bonus of working for the Dark.

Evony laughed, trailed her hand seductively down Lauren's arm, then moved to leave. "As long as you're keeping the Dark Elders off my back, I'm pleased." She turned her head to offer a parting shot, body still moving towards the door. "Don't let me down, Doctor." She smiled once more, then closed the door behind her.

It took a great deal of conscious effort on Lauren's part not to sag with relief. This visit from Evony proved that she could appear without warning anytime, and Lauren could not afford to relax. The Dark Tower was not safe for her, and she could never let her guard down.

It was absolutely imperative that the Morrigan catch no scent of what Lauren was actually doing - not her search in the archives, not the subterfuge of working for the Dark, and most importantly, not the serum. If Evony did, Lauren was as good as dead.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

That night, Lauren watched Bo sit down on her bed upstairs at the clubhouse, and tried not to get distracted by memories of all the times she'd made love to Bo in this very room.

Bo's face was all business, so Lauren got immediately to the point. "I've found something in the Dark archives that you need to see."

This evening, Lauren had once again ventured to the Deep archives looking for any information about the Wanderer. Finally, her numerous visits and countless hours of searching had revealed a prophecy - one that mentioned Rainer by name.

Her victory had been cut short when she overheard the Morrigan talking to someone Lauren couldn't see. Evony had spoken of the death of the Una Mens, and accused Bo and Rainer of killing Hale. The Morrigan planned to take matters into her own hands and kill Bo first.

Lauren fled quietly and in haste, eager to get to Bo as soon as possible to warn her.

Upon her arrival, she found Bo in her makeshift kitchen at the clubhouse, with Rainer and some woman Lauren had never seen before, studying a tarot card of some significance to them. Lauren could have given a damn and asked to speak to Bo alone.

Now, she had cornered Bo in her bedroom, where Lauren told Bo of the prophecy, of the foretold signs of the Wanderer's return - the end of his curse, Tamsin's rebirth, Hale's death - and how Rainer would come to betray the Fae.

Bo appeared unmoved. Lauren continued reading. "I haven't determined who the queen is, but-"

"Yeah," Bo interrupted quietly. "They think it's me."

There it was. Proof positive that Rainer's presence was a goddamned harbinger of doom. And yet Bo still didn't look convinced.

"Holy shit, Bo, then it's coming true. Don't you see? We have got to get you out of here!" Lauren was exasperated, her patience with Bo long gone.

"Why are you doing this?" Bo asked angrily.

Lauren wished she was strong enough to just physically drag Bo to safety. She stood and began pacing the room. "Something is coming for you. The Morrigan -"

"To get back at me?" Bo asked.

Lauren whirled around to face Bo, incredulous. "I stayed with the Dark for you."

"What?" Bo seemed floored by the idea.

Now, Bo was not an educated woman, but Lauren knew she was  _smart,_ so why was it that she couldn't understand this simple truth? "I isolated myself for you. This was all for you." Lauren felt absolutely naked; this admission revealed the very essence of who she was. "Everything that I do is for you."

"Except tell me your plan. Or the truth."

 _Christ, baby,_ Lauren thought to herself,  _you are focusing on the_ **wrong things**   _right now._ Why was Bo so goddamned contrary?

"I had to make you believe it if I was going to make the Morrigan believe it." Of course, now that Lauren said that out loud, she realized how weak it sounded.

"I can't even hear this right now," Bo said. "There is too much going on. Kenzi is hurting so badly and where were you?"

Bo's mention of Kenzi hit Lauren hard. No, she and Kenzi weren't close, but they were family and had been through a lot together. Lauren knew that she couldn't have done anything to ease Kenzi's heartbreak at Hale's death - so soon after the two of them had started their relationship - but she did feel guilty that she hadn't even tried.

Still, Kenzi and her pain were not the issues at hand, and Lauren had one goal in mind: get Bo away from Rainer.

"Playing around in the dark archives," Bo continued. "Digging up shit on the man somehow intertwined with my destiny."

Bo, however, was refusing to see reason, and Lauren couldn't believe that Bo would stay with Rainer in the face of so much evidence.

"So that's it? Hmm? You choose him?"

"It is not like that. I chose you," Bo accused, " and you broke my heart."

Regret washed over Lauren like a cold shower, and she couldn't speak a word in response. For one moment, she saw how much pain lived behind Bo's eyes - and how much of it was Lauren's fault.

Maybe that was the answer. To give up all of this Dark Fae bullshit, and try one more time with Bo.

She moved forward, nearly ready to pledge herself once more - to come clean about all of it and admit the depth of her love once and for all - but heard footsteps behind her and then Rainer's voice interrupted her intentions.

One look at Bo's face when Rainer spoke made Lauren reconsider. This was Bo, who couldn't choose between Lauren or Dyson, and that was without a prophecy of impending doom on the table, or any mention of unchangeable destiny.

Bo would never choose her. Lauren turned to leave without another word.

She'd have to figure out another way.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

With adrenaline pounding her system, Lauren rushed to her loft. The Morrigan wanted to kill Bo, but Bo was busy with more prophetic Rainer destiny bullshit. Lauren now had confirmation that Rainer's very presence portended the end of the world and that meant Bo was in danger on two fronts.

They had already killed the Una Mens. If the Morrigan made a move against Bo now, someone would die.

Lauren didn't have time to call in the troops. If she knew Evony, she'd attack Bo right away. Lauren had to act fast.

The serum was locked up in her private laboratory. There was only one syringe prepared, but it was possible that the full dose wasn't needed. So how could she get at least some of that serum in Evony quickly without detection?

She drove erratically to her destination, thinking over possibilities and just as quickly ruling them out. Lauren didn't know how long the serum would take to work, so she couldn't inject her - Evony would kill her before the serum took effect. Evony would never drink a poisoned beverage - the Morrigan would not have lived this long by falling for such obvious attempts to dispose of her.

Lauren considered ingesting the serum herself and then kissing Evony again, but she wasn't sure the dose would be strong enough once diluted in such a fashion. She had to get the serum into Evony's bloodstream, and if she couldn't inject it or get her to ingest it orally, then -

Lauren didn't like the final scenario that came to mind, but she was out of options. It was ludicrous, but it might work.

_Seriously, Lewis? Are you really going to sleep with Evony? Whore much?_

Her brain raced, trying to come up with something -  _anything -_ that would work, but nothing else came to mind. Perhaps if she had more time, she could come up with a better plan, but the clock was ticking.

It was vile, but it could work. She was disgusted with herself, but she had to try. Bo would hate her, but as long as Bo was alive to do it, Lauren would take those odds. Bo and Rainer were bound to cross paths with the Morrigan, and soon.

It was time to take Evony out of the equation.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

 _Well, mission accomplished,_  Lauren thought, gallows humor helping to hold back the terror.

She had successfully seduced the Morrigan, administering the serum - in a way that still repulsed her - by using it as a personal lubricant and then begging Evony to perform the most intimate of acts. Then, the indignity continued as she distracted the Morrigan long enough for the serum to take effect by performing the same act in return.

It had worked. The Morrigan's powers had been neutralized. While Evony might try other methods to get Bo out of the picture, she wouldn't be able to kill her on sight with just a wave of her hand, so Lauren was relieved.

Her victory, however, was short-lived. Soon after, she'd learned that Evony had a son, a  _human_  son who was none other than Massimo, the Druid, and who promptly took Lauren captive.

Now, she cowered in a small cubbyhole, watching Massimo pace around his lair talking to himself. If only she'd known.

If only she'd known that this lair was in the Dark archives, just a few rows over from where she'd finally discovered the prophecy about Rainer, she might have found that information sooner.

If only she'd known that Evony had a child, she might have been better prepared to watch her own back.

If only she'd known that son was Massimo, she might have been able to prevent Hale's death.

Lauren fought the tears back, trying to figure some way out of her current predicament. She tried once to appeal to his humanity, but that turned out to be a huge tactical error.

"What's the average life expectancy of a healthy human, Dr. Lewis?" Massimo asked as he paced the room.

Lauren feared giving the answer, sure there was some trap she couldn't see.

"In this country? Eighty-four for women," she answered quietly. "Eighty for men."

He whirled to glare at her. "Guess how much that changes if the human spends his life in the vicinity of the Fae?" he asked disdainfully, spittle flying from his mouth as he spoke. "By half. Half, Doctor."

He then leaned over her, his face just inches from hers.

"Forty. That's how long I can expect to live as a human around the Fae," he sneered. "I'm not too keen on those choices. Die young because some thoughtless idiot has no respect for the Druid, for my skill, for my knowledge, for all my accomplishments, or die old, shriveled up, pissing myself in my decrepitude."

He stood to his full height and smiled in what Lauren guessed he probably thought was kindness, but only succeeded in making him appear more maniacal. "I will bend those idiots to my will. Starting with the succubus."

Suddenly, he ranted some more about his mother, about all of the things he'd offered Evony only to be rejected and denied her love. He insisted that Lauren help him - and through her sobs, she'd vehemently denied that she would - and then right before her very eyes, though she pleaded with him not to, he had swallowed the Origin Seed - an instrument so potent, it contained the collective power of all of the Una Mens.

Then, he pulled her from the cubbyhole, dragged her across the darkened room, and chained her to a column.

"Now, you stay put, my pet," he giggled. "I've got plans for you." He sobered up and looked at her with dark intent. "You really shouldn't have messed with the Morrigan."

And then he was gone. At least he had the decency to leave the lights on.

Lauren tugged at chains as thick as her thumbs, and the ancient locks that bound her. It was a futile effort, and tears once again filled her eyes.

Unlike the horrible episodes of captivity she'd experienced in years past, she had no hope at all of rescue. No one knew where she was. No one was coming for her. She'd isolated herself so much in recent weeks that she'd damned herself with her own independence.

She was doomed now that Massimo had ingested the Origin Seed. There had been no way in hell she could have hoped to best him human to human, but now that he possessed endless Fae knowledge and sporadic super-human strength?

 _I am going to fucking die here_.  _Alone, with this madman._

She sobbed and cried until she couldn't see.

Lauren had known for years that her life was forfeit. That because she'd been willfully drawn into this world of creatures both fantastic and terrifying, she would not survive the knowledge of its existence.

As a human, she was impressive, yes. Her medical degree. Her military service. And while the knowledge she'd gained in the human world had served the Fae, it didn't really change how the Fae viewed her.

A lowly human. Chattel. Food.

She and Massimo had more in common than either of them would like to admit. He, too, was permanently and irreparably mired in the world of the Fae, and look what it had done to him.

His constant attempts to master magics as the Druid had not changed the fact that he was still a human, and it had eaten him alive.

Now Massimo was something else entirely. Not human. Not Fae. Some unforeseen abomination with unknown skills and knowledge, and no rational mind to hold himself together. And, he had the Twig of Zamora - a token of protection that allowed no harm of any kind to fall on its bearer - which meant he was invulnerable. This was worse than anything she'd faced before.

Which meant that now Bo would face someone far worse than Rainier.

And that was the thought that pulled Lauren outside of her own predicament and dried her tears. She took another look at the locks on her chains and began to wonder.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren found herself actually praying for his death. The gods were fickle, and tended to not meddle in the willful affairs of humans and Fae, so some compartmentalized and emotionless part of her brain wondered why the hell she was praying at all - but she prayed nonetheless.

And then, just when she was sure there was no hope whatsoever, she heard the voice she hoped for but never once believed she'd hear.

"I got your epi-pen right here," Bo said, as she walked into Massimo's lair, brandishing a familiar sword.

Lauren was at once elated and frightened beyond belief. The brief confrontation seemed like it took forever, while Massimo tried repeatedly to kill Bo, but Bo kept fighting back. Meanwhile, Lauren managed to free herself from her chains. She pulled the Twig of Zamora from Massimo's pocket while he tried to revive his mother - who had arrived on the scene soon after Bo had come to the rescue, and been used as a pawn by Bo in the fight against Massimo. Her newly human body hadn't fared well.

And then, finally, Bo got the upper hand.

Lauren watched as Bo struck Massimo repeatedly, exacting vengeance for Lauren herself, for Rainer, for Hale, and ultimately, for Kenzi as she stabbed him through the heart with what Lauren finally realized was Kenzi's sword. And then Bo sagged in relief - and in visible despair.

"I've got you," Lauren said, and took Bo in her arms.

"Lauren," Bo said. "Gods, I'm so damned tired of this shit."

Lauren held her close, pulling Bo's head against her shoulder.

"I'm tired of fighting," Bo continued. "And killing. And fucking prophecies and the goddamned end of the world." She paused. "Again."

Lauren pulled back a bit to look in Bo's eyes. "What?"

Bo rolled her eyes. "First, let's get the hell out of here."

They quickly exited the lair, hand in hand, and the Dark archives altogether, and then Lauren took the lead and navigated them through the halls, into the parking garage, and finally, a deserted alley behind the Dark Tower. Only then did Lauren stop, and let go of Bo's hand. She turned to face Bo, urging her to talk with her eyes.

"There's a portal open to the underworld," Bo said. "Last I checked, a shitload of revenants was crawling out of it. Dyson and Tamsin are there now with Kenzi, trying to hold them back until I can figure out how to close the portal."

Lauren couldn't even begin to process that information. "Holy shit."

"Yeah."

And then Lauren realized that there were a couple of crucial pieces of information she needed to share.

"Um," she started, then cleared her throat and started again. "Evony is human."

That got Bo's attention. "What?!"

Lauren glanced at her feet in embarrassment. "Yeah, I sort of made a serum that neutralizes her powers. Technically," Lauren amended, somewhat chagrined, "it merely suppresses the markers that are, on closer inspection, neurological additions to elements of the normal human genome, and renders them harmless. It's kind of fascinating, really, if you think about it. The base genome of her species is very similar to humans, but-"

"Lauren."

"Sorry, um," Lauren was characteristically awkward. "I slept with her to give her the serum, and effectively rendered her Fae powers useless. For all intents and purposes, the Morrigan is now human."

She was surprised to see a flash of blue across Bo's normally brown eyes, and then Bo directed a cold, steely focus on Lauren's face. "You slept with Evony."

"Yes, I did," Lauren said, and stood taller for a moment. "She was going to kill you, and I had to stop her."

"With your ladybits? Your brainiac self couldn't find a way to distract her without taking off your pants?"

Lauren thought that was a tad crass, all things considered, but Bo wasn't exactly out of line. "Look, Bo, I didn't have a lot of time - "

"You had time to make a serum!"

Bo wasn't wrong.

Lauren thought they should focus more on the matters at hand. "Let's recap, here. The Morrigan is currently out of commission. Massimo is dead. You've got an impending apocalypse, and -"

She suddenly noticed the chain around Bo's neck, and realized that Bo had found the necklace she'd left behind in apartment back in the Light Fae compound.

Everything changed for Lauren in that moment. Bo knew how she felt, and clearly felt the same way. Then Bo told her about Rainier's death at Massimo's hand, and mentioned they needed to get going, but Lauren recognized that she really needed to stay, to make sure Evony was safe, since her condition was Lauren's fault.

So Bo turned to leave, and Lauren hoped that Bo would survive the night so they could talk more about their future.

And then Bo hurried back to her, and raised her lips to Lauren's, and Lauren's heart soared.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Moments later, their parting kiss still burning her lips, Lauren watched Bo walk away, off once again to save the world.

Yes, Bo had to stop the revenants from destroying the planet and, yes, she had to somehow close the portal to the underworld, but…Bo was a powerful woman of amazing strength, with a depth of spirit and will that made her nearly unstoppable. With Dyson, Tamsin, and Trick by her side, however, she would be invincible.

Lauren was supremely confident that Bo would rise to the challenge and emerge victorious.

Despite the impending apocalypse, Lauren felt as if, for the first time in what seemed like forever, she could take a moment to relax. Rainer, friend or foe, was dead. The Morrigan was no longer an imminent threat. Evony's psychotic offspring, Massimo, even with the power of the origin seed, had been destroyed in absolute retribution for every last one of his misguided and horrible deeds.

Perhaps once the battle tonight was over, Lauren and Bo would finally have a chance to take some time for themselves, and put all of this madness behind them. Perhaps tonight, there could be a new beginning for the two of them.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren tried unsuccessfully to push the Hippocratic Oath from her mind as she navigated the halls of the Dark Tower. Evony was barely conscious after her ordeal in the archives, and leaned heavily on Lauren for support as they walked, but she was capable enough to give Lauren directions that evidently circumvented the security cameras.

This was good information to have, Lauren realized. She hoped she could remember it later.

_I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant._

Once again, Lauren stood within Evony's quarters, but this time, as the Morrigan's physician, not her conspiring lover.

_I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow._

The moment Evony's head touched the pillow, she was out. The strain of a succubus feed that was her own son's doing as he attempted to implement the power he'd stolen from Bo during their battle, in addition to Evony's newly human condition, had completely drained her. She'd probably sleep for a couple of days.

_I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism._

Lauren looked around the room and decided to remove every trace of her earlier visit - the wine, the glasses, the borrowed lingerie. No one would believe she'd been here, and she was fairly certain that, at this point, Evony wouldn't tell anyone either.

With one dose, Lauren had rendered the Morrigan powerless. And yet, she did not for a second believe she had the upper hand. Evony was still dangerous.

Now that all traces of her previous presence had been removed, Lauren stood and watched Evony sleep. For a long, dark moment, Lauren considered finishing the job. With the Morrigan completely out of the picture, Bo would have one less thing to worry about.

_Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God._

No, Lauren had done enough harm on this day.

She'd deal with the aftermath later. Right now, she needed to get out of this tower before her presence was detected by someone who might wonder why the doctor was lurking in previously unvisited areas.

_Time to go._

She lowered the lights, left the room, and retraced her earlier steps in an attempt to avoid any surveillance.

As she walked through the last hall before the door to the parking garage, a sudden vibration in her pocket had Lauren fumbling for her phone. Surprised to see Dyson's name on the screen, she quickly answered, only to hear him nearly sobbing through the connection. For one shocking second, she feared for Bo, and she swore her heart stopped beating at the thought that Bo was dead.

A moment later, Lauren fell to the ground in shock, shoulder to the nearby wall, her knees pulled to her chest, absently aware that she'd dropped her phone so suddenly that little plastic pieces had broken off, though she could still faintly hear Dyson's voice calling her name - but she couldn't speak.

 _Kenzi,_ Lauren thought _._

_Dear gods, no._

 

**Chapter 4**

Two days later, instead of going to her own office in the Dark Tower, Lauren punched the elevator button for the penthouse floor. She walked with calm certainty past the oddly empty receptionist's desk and through the open door before her. Without speaking, she closed the door, looked steadily at the room's solitary occupant, and took a seat.

After a few moments, Lauren spoke without apology. "I heard you say you were going to kill her. I had no other choice."

The Morrigan made a rude noise. "I'd kill  _you_  if you weren't the only possible solution to my predicament."

Lauren winced. "I haven't yet made the serum to counter the effects."

Evony leaned forward in anger. "Well, that's just fucking great, Lauren. Since when do you do half assed work?"

Lauren responded in kind. "Since I got backed into a fucking corner. Did you hear the part where I said I had no choice?"

Powerless, and damned uncomfortable about it, the Morrigan backed down. "Look, can you fix it or not?"

Lauren shrugged.

"To be honest, Evony, I don't know how long it might take."

Evony seethed. "Like hell. I'm sure I can  _incentivize_ you -"

"Evony, your threats aren't going to work this time." And Lauren was determined that they wouldn't. She had a syringe with a fatal dose of morphine in her pocket right now, although she wasn't entirely sure which of them it was for.

She took a breath, and tried to ease the altercation.

"I'm sure if I explain to the Dark Elders -" Lauren began.

"No!" Evony almost yelled, then collected herself. "The Dark Elders can't know. You'll have to do all this on the sly - much like your original development, I'm sure." She scowled, then seemed to remember that she was substantially at Lauren's mercy.

Lauren bowed her head for a moment, deep in thought. After a few moments, she raised her head, and squinted calculating eyes at Evony.

"I'm going to need an independent space to work," Lauren stated.  _And I'm keeping that car._

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_Since I haven't spoken to Bo in a couple of weeks, everything I know is hearsay, but I believe what I've heard since most of it is from Dyson. Bo has become single-mindedly relentless in her pursuit of the last hell shoe and is unstoppable._

_Evidently, she doesn't even argue the way she used to or try to plead her case - she just leaves. Dyson tried to accompany her once, and he told me it was the coldest conversation they'd ever had, that Bo had looked him dead in the eye and ordered him to stay behind in the calmest, most matter of fact and emotionless tone he'd ever heard._

_He said that it seems like she's dead inside. He's a simple man, and after his ordeal of once losing his love of Bo to the Norn, I'm sure he believes what Bo has said about her heart - that it is gone now that Kenzi is dead, but I know the truth._

_Bo's heart is so broken that it's taking everything she's got to keep moving forward with her mission. And the mission is getting Kenzi back._

_A few years ago, I would have gently insisted that there was no chance of getting Kenzi back, that she had to let go of Kenzi, that Kenzi was gone. Now? I know better._

_If anyone can find a way to bring Kenzi back from Valhalla, it's Bo Dennis._

_I haven't texted or called her, not since the first few days. I told her I loved her, that I'd give her any support she required. How could I not? But she surprised me by asking for space, and after all I've done to her and everything we've been through - both separately and together - who am I to deny her that? She wasn't rude or harsh - she told me she'd call me if she needed me._

_So I haven't heard a word in over seventeen days._

_Dyson texts me whenever she's in town, and I go to the one place I know she'll be._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

By the fourth visit, Lauren had a regular parking space.

Three weeks prior, she'd dropped everything to attend Kenzi's funeral, the Dark and the Morrigan be damned. Oddly enough, Bo hadn't been there, but Lauren hadn't been surprised. Only a few people made an appearance - Dyson, Tamsin, Trick, Hale's sister Val, a couple of teenagers Lauren didn't recognize, and a few relatives of Kenzi's who looked to be sizing up all the attendees for who knows what - but Bo's absence was significant.

None of them spoke much at the graveside service, but the important thing was that they were all there. When Lauren turned to leave, she could have sworn she saw Vex, high on a neighboring ridge, although she'd heard that he'd left town.

Four days later, Dyson called to tell Lauren that Bo had blown into the Dal looking for new intel, then walked out again. After a moment's thought, Lauren jumped into her SUV and drove here, to the cemetery where Kenzi was buried. She parked on the bluff, far above Kenzi's headstone and waited, trusting her gut.

Less than an hour after she arrived, she saw the distinct yellow frame of Bo's Camaro navigating the thin road through the cemetery. Lauren didn't get out of her car, wanting to let Bo do whatever she needed to do, but it meant something to Lauren to just be there for Bo, even if Bo didn't know it.

Twice more, she received texts from Dyson - that Bo had rolled back into town after another failed mission, but that she was alive and unharmed. Twice more, Lauren had driven here and waited for Bo to show up, and both times, Bo had proved her right.

Today, Lauren stepped out of the car, shut the door softly and moved to lean back on the front of the vehicle. She could see Bo down below her, placing a large bouquet of what looked like yellow flowers from this distance down at the base of the headstone.

Lauren quickly stood tall when Bo turned around, put her sunglasses on, yet faced Lauren's exact position. They both stood unmoving, far enough apart that they wouldn't have been able to hear each other if they'd yelled, but clearly close enough to recognize each other.

And that's when Lauren realized Bo knew she was there.

Lauren didn't move, didn't want Bo to think she was pressuring her or crowding her, but that she was only here in support. She was merely a solemn witness to Bo's pain.

Bo didn't move either.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

While the wee hours of the night when the nightmares came were the worst, a close second on the pain scale was the end of a long day. When she walked into the loft, the main room was almost always dark and full of stale air before she turned on the lights or put on some music to liven it up. When she looked at the sparsely decorated space, she would realize yet again that there wasn't a single picture of Bo here.

There wasn't a picture of Bo in the whole apartment.

And yet Bo colored everything. Lauren loved Bo so much, and fought so hard against reminding herself of it every hour of every day - most of the time successfully - but after a long day, tired and spent from pretending to be someone she wasn't, Lauren would lose the battle.

The frustration and bitterness and longing would close in on her so tightly, it took effort to breathe. She had chosen to stay with the Dark to protect Bo, and all along, choosing Dark had been Bo's plan.

Of course, now that Rainer and Massimo were dead and the portal had been closed, Bo had torn up her contract and decided she wasn't Dark anymore. Just like that. Back to being unaligned.

Except Lauren was still out in the cold, because she was believed to still be under Evony's influence. And frankly, Lauren had decided that she didn't owe anyone an explanation except Bo.

Lately, though, Bo wasn't talking to anyone, much less Lauren herself.

Yet, Lauren missed Bo's touch, and her kiss, and the feel of Bo's skin, and at times like these, Bo's laugh. Lauren would stand and close her eyes, and torture herself by reminiscing about those first few weeks together after Bo had finally committed to Lauren. Back when Lauren could pretend that she could be all that Bo needed.

She would think about the way they'd sit against each other on the couch, and how Bo would share her dreams with Lauren. Bo would ask her what foods she liked, and what music she'd listened to that day or tell her some inane story about Kenzi's latest exploits.

Lauren missed the way Bo's smile warmed up every cold, dark corner of her life, and every night just before bed, it broke something inside her that could not be mended. Sometimes she cried herself to sleep, the sobs shaking her whole body. Sometimes, it hurt too much to even breathe.

And then there were nights when she didn't dream about Bo at all. She wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.

She tried to remind herself that there were far worse things in the world than a broken heart, but she didn't always succeed.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It took less than a month to get the new lab up and running, which was a testament to Lauren's ingenuity, Sam's persistence and Evony's extensive influence and wealth. Lauren was surprised that she got Sam as part of the deal, but when he found out that she was leaving the Dark labs to go perform her own cutting edge research, he practically begged to join her and submitted his resignation immediately.

Though named after Evony, the clinic was open to humans and Fae - Light or Dark, though Lauren didn't advertise its neutral status - with both a round-the-clock medical unit and a small, state-of-the-art research facility. Lauren moved back and forth between the two wings as needed.

Word of the clinic and lab spread quickly, and they'd had a steady influx of patients over the last week. Lauren was busy training new staff and overseeing a couple of research projects that she and Sam had migrated over from the Dark labs.

Other rumors had spread just as fast. It took less than a week after that fateful night for word to get out about Evony's human condition, and she was quickly deposed from her seat as the Morrigan. Evony had gone into hiding before the Dark Elders could take her into custody, but not so far that she wasn't constantly in touch with Lauren about the current status of the new serum.

Evony certainly kept the money rolling in, so the lab was fully equipped and almost completely operational.

Over time, the work helped to lighten Lauren's spirits and take her mind off the growing distance between her and Bo. Just yesterday, she'd finally accepted an invitation to lunch with Sam. It was completely platonic - Sam was dating a musician, she was relieved to found out - but it had been so long since she'd had a simple meal with a colleague that it felt like a special occasion.

The icing on the cake was that she still had access to the Dark labs. Lauren didn't know if it was because Evony had somehow permanently granted authorization that hadn't been revoked when the former Morrigan was made human, or if the Dark Elders had allowed it for reasons unknown to her, but either way, the badge still worked. Lauren was sure this would come in handy.

Her new lab technician, Lisa, was doing an impeccable job and seemed to anticipate Lauren's every need, not to mention she was a bright and cheerful addition to the team.

Lauren hadn't felt this satisfied professionally since she'd first been awarded the research grant in the Congo.

If her nights hadn't changed much - since she still missed Bo terribly though Lauren harbored some bitterness over the entire Rainer debacle - at least her days were brighter. She smiled to herself as she helped Sam with a returning patient.

A familiar sensation washed over Lauren, so she felt her before she saw her.

Lauren slowly turned her head to see Bo standing almost nervously in the middle of the receiving room floor, holding a pair of ratty sandals in one hand.

_Oh, shit. She's found the other hell shoe._

Bo was going to Valhalla to find Kenzi.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL ENTRY -_

_Once again, Bo has accomplished the impossible, and sent Kenzi back from the under-realms. Part of me isn't even surprised - the part that can just set aside the fantastic, and treat these things as every day occurrences._

_How is this one woman capable of defying the odds, overcoming insurmountable obstacles, and bending prophecies to suit her? I know that, as Fae, she is so much more than human, but the essence of Bo is more than any Fae I've ever encountered._

_I'm not sure that even the Blood King can hold a candle to her. It should scare me, being so attached to someone so inherently powerful, but it doesn't. Not even hearing that she is capable of summoning a dark army is enough to make me give her up._

_Perhaps that is why I thought it was possible the ghost I felt was Bo. It seemed so real._

_I know I was tired. I hadn't slept more than two or three hours at a stretch since Bo disappeared right before my eyes after putting on those goddamned hell shoes. At that moment, I was angry, again, and lost, again, and could not believe that there was nothing I could do to help her. So I went to the one person I thought had the answers._

_Tamsin was little help, though, except for a journal that Dyson, Trick and I pored over, trying to find some way to help Bo. Ultimately, we succeeded only in finding and opening the gates to Valhalla, where Dyson and I turned back after learning that Kenzi's soul had been returned to her body._

_Luckily, we got to the cemetery in time to dig her out of her grave and then found out that Bo had traded herself for Kenzi - and Kenzi and I were sure she was trapped in the under-realms._

_Frankly, later that night in Bo's room, I was probably a little bit drunk thanks to the emergency medicinal vodka Kenzi and I had shared - toasting her return from Valhalla - but I swear, I thought that spirit was Bo._

_Perhaps, my subconscious mind filled in all the details because so much else was familiar. The scent of Bo's skin and favorite fragrance on the kimono and on the pillows. The feel of the sheets under me. The intimate warmth of a room I'd spent so much time in, back when Bo and I were together._

_I was sure it was her. Of course, it wasn't._

_It was some ghost trying to hitchhike a way back to this mortal plane and I inadvertently summoned it, but Kenzi and I managed to purge the damned thing after trapping it in Trick's ouija board._

_So now we wait - hoping that Dyson has managed to hold the gates of Valhalla open._

_Hoping for Bo's return._

_-END EXCERPT-_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren was standing next to her car door and leaned against it in shock.

"Seriously?" she said to Bo, who stood less than an arms length away.

"Yeah," Bo said quietly, arms crossed against her chest.

"Holy - " Lauren stuttered. " _Christ,_ Bo, there isn't a big enough curse word for that."

"Yeah," Bo replied.

They stood not far from the back door to the Dal, where they'd just finished an awkward supper. Trick had closed the Dal for the night and insisted everyone come to the bar for dinner to celebrate Kenzi and Bo's return from Valhalla. So, Lauren had placed herself across from Bo, with Dyson, Kenzi, Tamsin and Trick himself completing the arrangement, at an elaborately decorated table featuring an even more elaborate meal.

After everything they'd all been through, only Trick and Tamsin had been in the mood for conversation, but there was an unspoken agreement to stay away from the heavier topics.

No talking about Bo's recent return from what should have been Kenzi's afterlife. No talk about how Lauren had single handedly shifted the power balance in the colony by effectively poisoning the Morrigan. No talk about Tamsin's betrayal - again - or how much everyone missed Hale.

With so much off limits, it didn't leave much but brief, idle conversation about the food.

And then, when Lauren and Bo had gone to Trick's wine storage to fetch a few more bottles, Lauren had been attacked. She and Kenzi had thought they'd vanquished the ghost back at the clubhouse, but they'd actually only succeeded in giving it corporeal form. Kenzi had solemnly killed the intruder using Trick's emergency shotgun.

Dinner had broken up quickly after that.

A short while later, when Lauren had wished everyone a good night, Bo had insisted on walking Lauren to her car.

The darkness of the late hour and the faint glow of streetlights at the end of the alley made the space around them seem quiet as a confessional, and a place for revealing secrets.

For example, the revelation that Bo's father was Hades, and that she'd been born in Hel.

Lauren looked in Bo's eyes, unwavering, but unable to say a word for a long while. Bo was the first one to look away.

"So, that whole bit about me being the Dark Queen? Looks like it's true." She looked sad, and ashamed, and - Lauren noticed this last part with surprise - defeated.

To Lauren, this was intolerable.

"Bo Dennis, you look at me," Lauren stepped forward, took Bo's shoulders in her hands and squeezed firmly. "This doesn't change a thing about who you are."

Bo shook her head in disagreement, but her eyes showed she wanted to be believe what Lauren was telling her. "How can it not change me, Lauren?" Her face turned angry. "I am the daughter of pure evil, born in the place my adopted parents raised me to fear. They told me I was a devil child, and guess what?"

Her voice fell and tears filled her eyes. "They were right. My father rules Hel and then when I showed up, he tried to kill me. I can't believe that he won't somehow come after me, and he's a  _god,_  Lauren -"

Lauren's hands moved to gently cup Bo's face, and raised her head to look in her eyes.

"No matter how you may feel, Bo, no matter what challenges you face, you are the strongest, bravest woman I have ever known," she whispered fervently. "Nothing and no one can change that." She wiped away Bo's stray tears with her thumbs.

They looked at each other for a long moment and then Bo seemed to come back to herself. She wiped away the rest of her tears and stood taller in a way that gently pushed Lauren's hands away.

Lauren gave her a moment to collect herself.

"I worry about you," Bo said, which seemed out of the blue to Lauren.

"Me?" Lauren was incredulous. With all that Bo had going on in her life, how the hell did she have time to worry about Lauren?

"The serum."

"Oh,  _that,_ " Lauren said, uncomfortably. Bo wasn't wrong. Just today, Lauren had received two more death threats, and had taken to driving long, roundabout routes from one destination to another just to make sure she wasn't being followed. She'd even gone so far as to install a home security system in her loft, but these were  _her_ problems, and she really didn't want to be a distraction to Bo.

Not now that Bo had a god to deal with.  _Jesus._

The back door to the Dal opened. Dyson and Trick carried the plastic-wrapped body of the dead Fae Kenzi had killed. They glanced at Bo and Lauren, but kept walking down the alley, and then around the corner.

Lauren didn't want to venture a guess as to what they were going to do with that thing.

When she looked back to Bo, Bo was looking at the back door, where Kenzi had appeared and stood shivering in the night breeze. Bo glanced at Lauren, tilted her head towards Kenzi, and shrugged. "Guess that's my cue."

It was another interruption to the eternal conversation between them. Something always came up.

"Guess so." Lauren smiled in a way that she hoped was supportive and encouraging. "Good night, Bo."

Something always got in the way.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

"Back again, Dr. Lewis?"

Lauren looked up in surprise to see another of Bruce's twin brothers at the attendant's desk just inside the main door to the Dark archives.

"Eric?"

Eric laughed. "I swear you're the only one who can tell us apart."

Lauren shrugged nonchalantly, trying to give a casual air to her visit. "They're really not trying hard enough." She hadn't been back to the Dark Tower in a couple of weeks, but her badge had yet to be deactivated, and she'd driven here first thing this morning to try her luck.

"Enjoy your visit," he replied, then went back to reading what appeared to be a paranormal romance novel.

She went about her business, and walked past the rows of more recent books, then headed directly for the stairway leading down to the Deep Archive.

Lauren was here to learn what history had to say about Hades, the master of Hel.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Later that day, Lauren briefly considered the possibility that, perhaps, it was time to let Bo go.

In passing, Lisa had casually asked how her weekend had been and if she was seeing anyone. Lauren's first inclination was to laugh her ass off - seeing anyone? Like,  _dating?_

It was an utterly ridiculous idea - she couldn't date! There was work to do, and murders to solve, and serums to pretend-to-work-on, and Fae to dodge, and other Fae to keep her eyes on - she couldn't bother with something as diverting as  _a date._

And then she froze in her tracks when she realized that, actually, she could. She could go on a date. She could have dinner with someone. Or go to a movie.

Hell, she could even get laid, and no one would say a word. She was no longer beholden to the Light, who had caged her and kept her under constant supervision. She was no longer working solely for the Dark, though they probably disagreed and thought otherwise. Back before her transformation, Evony had made sure that Lauren had as much freedom as a human could have in the Fae world, and Lauren remained officially unclaimed.

She certainly didn't have a girlfriend. As much as she loved Bo, Bo was not available - in fact, Lauren had overheard some idle talk from Tamsin just the other day at the Dal, and was starting to think Tamsin wanted to be roommates  _with benefits_  where Bo was concerned.

 _That would be another notch on Bo's stylish bedpost._   _Seriously,_ Lauren thought uncharitably,  _who won't Bo fuck? Bruce?_

Lauren felt a little guilty even thinking unkind things about Bo, or Bruce for that matter, so she pushed the thought of Bo's many - albeit biologically necessary, real or imaginary - conquests out of her mind.

Lisa had long since left the room, probably wondering what the hell was wrong with the famous Dr. Lewis since Lauren had been standing there, staring into space, ever since Lisa had asked a simple question.

While she couldn't be in an actual relationship with anyone, since she couldn't be completely open and honest with another human being - she had too many secrets, too much history, with too much still hanging over her head, and too much at stake -

But that didn't mean that she had to be alone.

She thought for a moment about what it would be like, touching, kissing - loving - someone else, and putting Bo behind her.

That thought was followed by a sudden ache in her chest that grew so painful, she thought an organ had been beamed out of her body.

No. For Lauren, there was no one for her but Bo.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren's office at the clinic was located in the middle of the building, close to both the laboratory and the medical receiving room. She sat at her desk, late afternoon sun washing over it, as she made a few notes on a patient's file.

The clinic's landline rang, interrupting Lauren's thoughts. She set down her pen to answer the phone.

"Marquise Clinic. Dr. Lewis speaking. How can I help you?"

"You can die, you meddling human bitch. And if you won't, maybe I'll come slit your throat myself."

Lauren abruptly hung up. Adrenaline spiked through her system, and she couldn't stop the shaking of her hands. She waited a moment to catch her breath, then picked up her pen once more.

The calls were coming with more frequency, but so far, no one had come to the clinic in person. Word had certainly spread, and it was no longer anything close to a secret that Dr. Lauren Lewis had made a serum that had turned a Fae human.

It didn't seem to matter that the serum had been designed for one Fae in particular, and that it wouldn't do anyone else any good on any other species of Fae. Lauren blithely noted that people never did read the fine print or look any further than the surface for the truth.

She was startled by the abrupt ring of the phone, interrupting her again. She thought about not answering it, but this was a medical clinic, and it was entirely plausible that this was a medical emergency of some kind.

Lauren summoned her courage and lifted the handset to her ear.

"Marquise Clinic. Doctor -" she paused. "How can I help you?"

"Yes, yes, thank you," a polite woman's voice responded. "I've been waiting to hear from your clinic about some test results, but haven't heard from anyone. Is Dr. Lewis available?"

Lauren smiled in relief. "Yes, this is Dr. Lewis! I'm sorry that we haven't gotten back to you sooner. Your name please?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter, dear," the caller sweetly continued. "I'm patient and will wait as long as necessary for the perfect opportunity to break your little bones and suck the marrow from-"

Lauren's mouth fell open in shock as the woman spoke. The gruesome description of one possible fate continued until Lauren finally realized that she could hang up the phone.

She leaned back in her chair and looked around her office with new eyes. She was not safe here.

_What am I going to do?_

She was no stranger to violence. Not in the least - not after two tours in Afghanistan, the stint in the Congo, and nearly six years with the Fae.

Lauren knew how to use a firearm, had combat training, had even killed before in someone else's defense, but this was different. This would likely be close quarters one on one with a Fae opponent. She had no idea how to survive that on her own.

Sooner or later, someone was going to get too close to her, and she had to be able to defend herself, or she was going to die.

Oddly enough, the first face that crossed her mind was Dyson's. Yes, he was an asshole, but he was a known asshole who happened to be family, and there was no doubt that he was a strong and formidable warrior. She could talk to Bo, but that would lead to several discussions she really didn't want to have right now.

Plus, Bo tended to favor bladed weapons, and the idea of slicing into someone with the intent to kill them -

It turned Lauren's stomach.

She'd talk to Dyson. He had trained Kenzi as a shadowthief, he sparred regularly with Bo and Tamsin - he would be her best bet. She'd probably have to endure some mansplaining about human anatomy - to a doctor, no less; again, asshole - but she figured that she could endure some condescension on his part if it meant that she'd be able to hold her own in a fight.

Decision made, Lauren decided to take the rest of the day off. She'd go see Dyson immediately.

The phone rang again. Lauren didn't answer it.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL ENTRY -_

_One would think I'd be used to it by now - Bo's uncanny ability to find herself in life-threatening situations that leave her inches from death. Tamsin said it was supposed to be a simple bodyguard gig, but something went wrong and she found Bo facedown on the floor of her bedroom in a pool of her own blood._

_Bo wouldn't feed, she wouldn't heal, and medically, there was little I could do besides stabilize her rapidly degrading condition._

_She thinks that she has to be solitary to be strong. Near death, she told us all that Kenzi had left her, that she was alone, and that she would always be alone. After all we've been through together, she should know better, but I think this whole situation with the knowledge of her true father is really blinding her._

_One by one, Trick, Dyson and I told her how untrue that was._

_All I have to offer her, though, is my love. I don't have the longevity of a Blood King, the superhuman life force of a Shifter wolf - hell, even Tamsin has more to offer than I do, but I pledged myself anyway._

_Bo is right on one count - she said that it was only a matter of time before she lost all of us. Compared to the others, I won't be here long. What did Massimo say? Forty years? The average life expectancy of a human in a Fae world?_

_By that estimation, I've only got a handful of years left. The clock is definitely ticking._

_I can't be her lover - there's too much history between us and she barely talks to me. I can't help sustain her - why feed from a human when she can feed from any number of willing Fae? She proved that yet again when she kicked everyone but Dyson out so she could fuck him in_ **_my_ ** **** _goddamned lab -_

_I can't ease her pain at Kenzi's departure - their bond is one of sisters who have weathered so much together. I can only be her friend._

_It sucks, frankly, but I have come too far, and love her too much, for us to fall away to nothing at all._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

After an attack in the clinic the previous night, Lauren knew that she'd never be completely safe, but she no longer felt as vulnerable as she had just a few days before. She had spoken to Dyson about the threats and possible self defense, and he was right - her methods might be different from the kick-ass-and-take-names approach that most of her friends seemed to favor, but she was not without skill, and she was not defenseless.

She was also no longer alone. The night before, she'd spent a few hours on the couch with Tamsin, Dyson and Bo, watching movies and drinking beers - or wine, in Lauren's case. Bo missed Kenzi terribly, and they'd all agreed that they'd spend more time together to distract Bo in Kenzi's absence.

It wasn't all Lauren wanted, but it was enough. True, she lacked the intimacy in her relationship with Bo that she'd experienced in years past, but she and Bo had found some tentative measure of friendship. She was still in love with Bo, and would always love her, but some of the ache had eased. Lauren was only human, after all, and Bo seemed to need so much more than Lauren herself could provide.

It stung, but not as much as it had in years past. Or perhaps, Lauren was just used to the pain.

Lauren parked her car in a designated space in the clinic's lot. Though it was just before 7am, there were a couple of cars there already - Lauren was glad that a few folks on her staff shared her work ethic.

This new clinic was everything she'd ever dreamed of for herself. She had convinced Evony that the research arm was working on the former Morrigan's serum - one that would counter the effects of the previous serum that had rendered Evony human - but that Lauren could use the clinic and other research as cover. The Dark Elders would never know what Lauren was really working on. Evony didn't like it, but agreed that such subterfuge was necessary.

Of course, Lauren had no intention of restoring any of Evony's Fae capabilities, but only she knew that.

All things considered, including the current challenges of multiple death threats, Lauren's life was probably the most sedate it had been in years. The nightmares had eased, she was sleeping better, and getting plenty of exercise.

She was even working on a new paper for a medical journal about some work she and Sam had recently completed. He was excited to co-author the paper with her, and they had a meeting scheduled in a few minutes to finalize the abstract. Lauren entered the building, and walked down the hall to the lab. No one appeared to be on this side of the clinic yet.

Once she entered the lab, there was a stillness in the darkened room that gave her pause, some instinct that made her freeze. She didn't hear anything, and nothing moved in the dark, but there was something in the air -

Lauren suddenly recognized the smell, and rushed to turn on the lights. In one crystal clear moment, Lauren knew that she could never relax, she would never know peace, just as she knew that she would never have an ordinary life.

Lisa lay dead on the clinic floor, dressed in yesterday's clothes, unseeing eyes open wide.

 

**Chapter 5**

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_About twenty percent of my staff has left the clinic. Two people just never showed up for their shifts, the rest either quit on the spot or gave notice. I can't say that I blame them. Between Lisa's murder and the non-stop death threats - intended for me, of course, but I'm not the only one answering phones around here - it was too much of a risk to take for a bit of job security._

_And so I stood before them all, and told them if they wanted to leave, I'd understand._

_I have wondered more than once about giving up myself. Lisa was a bright young woman, who worked hard and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. No one deserves to die like that, but certainly not such a vibrant and generous soul who just wanted to help people._

_Because of me, she's dead. I brought this shadow here, and for what? None of them should be in harm's way because of what I've done. So, yes, I've considered packing it up, closing the clinic, and taking my chances on my own._

_Of course, closing the clinic would mean admitting to Evony that I'm not going to "cure" her, and though she no longer has her Fae powers, she is still a very dangerous woman and would no doubt hunt me down. I would, once again, have to run for my life._

_It seems forever since those years long ago when I was actively pursued for my crimes, but the brief stint on my own in the horrible aftermath of Taft's horrible lab reminded me that I can do it._

_But then I think about leaving Bo, and never seeing her again…_

_In other words, I'm not going anywhere._

_There has been a bit of good in recent days. A few Fae have come to apply for work. They could be spies, but almost all of them have sworn that - despite previous choices for one side or another - they want to be unaligned, and they want to work for me. A little digging on Dyson's part confirmed their loyalties. Bo's legend has certainly impacted the colony at large._

_Emily Finnegan - Clan O'Brien from the Boston Harpies - showed up. She and I worked almost silently side by side in the Light Fae compound for two years, and I haven't seen her since I ran off to work for Taft, but just yesterday morning, she walked into my clinic and started processing intake forms without a word._

_I'm certainly not going to throw her out or make her fill out an application. There's too much going on now - just this morning, I discovered that the three bodies Dyson brought in for post-mortem analysis have been stolen without a trace._

_We have no idea by whom or for what purpose._

-  _END EXCERPT -_

Lauren closed the latest volume of her journal and moved to the stack of applications waiting impatiently on her desk. While she trusted Dyson's word that most of the new Fae who'd come to the clinic to work were sincere, she was still looking over each form with a keen eye.

A shadow crossed her open office door, and Lauren looked up to see Vex walk in the room and openly peruse it.

"Nice digs, Doc. Impressive, really."

Her mouth fell open, and then she closed it with an audible pop. She hadn't seen Vex since Kenzi's funeral, weeks before, and that was from a distance. She hadn't spoken to him since before -

"You've got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled."

Vex looked honestly confused. "Oh, what'd I do this time?"

Lauren leaned back in her chair and looked him dead in the eye. "Oh, how quickly they forget." She tilted her head forward, and lowered the tone of her voice. "Massimo," she said, clearly enunciating every syllable. "You know he took me hostage, right? That he was going to bury me alive? That if he hadn't lost complete control of what little faculties he possessed, I'd be dead?"

There was a long silence while Vex had the decency to look ashamed.

Then Vex did something Lauren had never seen him do - he dropped all posturing and pretense and met her steely gaze.

"I was caught between a rock and a hard place on that whole deal, Doc." He took a seat without looking away. "I never intended for anyone to get hurt - certainly not Hale or Kenz, and definitely not you, but I loved that little bastard. I thought I could get him out of here before he could do anyone any real harm."

Lauren looked at him incredulously.

He squinted at her wordless response, and his tone turned dark. "But I suppose that's not something you'd know anything about, eh, Doc? Being stuck in a tough position with nothing but shitty choices all about? Choosing the lesser of two evils to save someone you love? And afterwards - having everyone blame you for everything?"

After a moment, Lauren sighed.  _Well, he's got you there, Lewis._  Vex could very well have been describing Lauren's entire ordeal with the Morrigan and the aftermath she was still processing. And yet…

"He nearly killed me, Vex."

Vex stood up abruptly and started waving around the room. "You look pretty alive to me, and doing quite well for yourself, if I do say so." He scoffed at her. "And everyone thinks  _Bo_ is the golden child."

Lauren was confused. "What are you talking about?"

It was Vex's turn to look incredulous. "Like you don't know!"

She stared at him blankly.

His eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline. "Oh, Dr. Lewis," he nearly sang. "You, my dear, have the colony in a tizzy."

Now, Lauren was shocked.

"You're not with the Light, but you've certainly got the ear of the Blood King, who'll no doubt become the official Ash in due time." He raised an index finger. "You're not with the Dark, but you're doing the Dark's research and have snagged their best scientist for your team."

A second finger joined the first. "You managed all by your lonesome to knock Evony, the almighty and powerful Morrigan, from her pedestal without getting killed in the process." Three. "Everyone knows about you and the publicly once-again-unaligned succubus -"

He started to raise the count to four when she interrupted with irritation. "Well, they're wrong about that."

Vex let her response go without comment and added a finger anyway. "And lastly," he paused to give the next statement some weight. "You've managed to do all this, with no official judgment or punishment from the Dark or Light Elders, yet you remain an unclaimed human."

Lauren was astonished and speechless.

Vex crossed his arms against his chest in victory. "The prosecution rests."

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

- _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_While I have no intention of reversing Evony's transformation, I have, however, begun theorizing the algorithm of a new serum._

_If I could block certain characteristics of her genes, then why can't I augment the human condition with a cloned sample of those same genes? And effectively replicate them?_

_In other words, what if I could give some Leanan Sidhe traits to a human? I'm singularly interested in the lifespan longevity properties, but other positive Fae attributes would be valuable side effects._

_What if I can scientifically create a Fae-human hybrid but without the messy random elements of procreation? I'll need to run an ungodly number of simulations, but it must be possible._

_Being human in this world is a dangerous proposition, but what if I can improve my odds?_

_\- END EXCERPT-_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Two days later, Lauren looked over some notes from the most recent checkup of the lone patient in the critical care unit. Cassie was an oracle who, terrified by visions that had been caused by contact with an unknown Fae, had removed her own eyes. She was healing reasonably well under the clinic's care, but still manic at the visions she remembered.

"Look what came in today's mail!" Sam poked his head into Lauren's office, and held up the latest issue of a highly respected medical journal.

They'd each submitted an article to this issue; their co-authored paper wouldn't be published for a few months."You can't see my name because of the glare coming off yours, Dr. L, but it's there."

His trademark smile was wide and lifted Lauren's mood as he walked over to her desk and handed the journal to Lauren.

"Ha, ha, Sam," Lauren said, but it was clear that she was pleased. "How many extra copies are you going to order?"

Sam crossed the room to one of her bookshelves, and opened a cabinet where Lauren stashed some single malt scotch for what Sam referred to as "professional emergencies".

"I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me," he replied.

He picked up two glasses with the fingers of one hand and the half-full decanter with the other, then shut the cabinet with a raised knee. This wasn't the first time he'd helped himself - the two of them had gotten far past the point of formality, so they no longer stood on ceremony.

"Once again, you've turned the genetics community on its ear," he said, splashed a bit of whiskey into each glass and passed one across her desk and into her waiting hand as he set down the decanter. A moment later, he raised the other glass in her direction.

"To the incomparable and brilliant Lauren Lewis, MD-PhD," he toasted, enunciating each syllable in praise.

"To both of us," Lauren corrected. "Sam, you worked as long and as hard as I did, and your paper was exceptional."

He winked in a way that would have been flirtatious from anyone else, but she knew it was his way of offering thanks for the compliment.

They chatted briefly about some of the staffing changes at the clinic, sipping periodically from their respective glasses.

"Hey, I've been meaning to ask you. What's with the cryo-container in cold lockup?" Sam asked.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Evony brought it over and politely insisted that I watch over its contents."

Sam frowned uncharacteristically. "What's in it?"

"I don't know, but if Evony is involved, it can't be good."

"Agreed." Sam shrugged it off. "I'll be sure to steer clear, then." He shook his head, then smiled at her again. "So." He sat down on the corner of the desk. "How'd Bo's birthday go?"

It was the first time he'd ever asked a question about Bo, and at this point, Lauren was pretty sure he didn't mean a thing by it. "Gods, Sam. It was absolutely terrible." She finished her whiskey and set down the glass emphatically. "Every possible thing that could have gone wrong, did. I need to call Bo and beg forgiveness."

He laughed, finished his own whiskey then took both glasses with the intent of carrying them off to the clinic's small kitchen. "I'll leave you to your groveling, then."

"Gee, thanks, Sam," Lauren said as he walked out the door. "I'll remember this when it's time for your quarterly review!" She called after him, his faint laughter reaching her as she picked up her cell phone.

 _Hope she's not too pissed._ Lauren pressed the number configured for Bo on her cell's speed dial.

" _Lauren,"_ Bo greeted after the first ring.

"Bo!" Lauren rested her forehead on one palm, elbow propped up on her desk. "I am so, so sorry about yesterday!"

There was a short pause before Bo answered.  _"The thing with the cat?"_

"No, no, though I'm sorry for that, too. Your birthday!" Lauren spoke rapidly. "I'm so sorry I forgot and with everything that happened trying to find Cassie, I never got to tell you that I tried. I really tried, Bo."

" _Lauren, it's really ok."_

"I got you a ceramic frog that matched the new paint at the clubhouse but then I dropped it and it broke. Then I tried to bake you a cake, but I used salt instead of sugar and ended up burning it anyway."

She paused for a breath at Bo's light laugh and then continued. "I got you three dozen balloons but for some reason they all decided to explode - simultaneously I might add - in my car on my way to the Dal. And then!" She sighed melodramatically. "Then I  _ordered_  a cake, a chocolate one, but it turned out to be vanilla. And how do I know? Because when I delivered it to the Dal, Mark and Vex were unsurprisingly at the root of a bar fight that somehow resulted in me tasting said cake with my entire face."

By the time she'd finished, she was out of breath and Bo was howling with laughter. " _Oh my gods, Lauren. You did not."_

"I did! Face plant, right into the cake," she smiled as she spoke. "It took twenty minutes to get it out of my eyelashes." The easy banter pleased Lauren.

" _Well, it sounds like you've been punished enough."_ Bo's laughter tapered off. " _You're forgiven."_

Lauren relaxed in her desk chair, happy to have cleared the air. "Honestly, the cat was Tamsin's idea. You can blame her for that."

There was another short pause. " _She found a way to make it up to me."_

Lauren's good mood vanished.

She recognized that tone of voice, however polite, and could venture an educated guess at how Tamsin managed to get into Bo's good graces. Tamsin had told her the day before that she and Bo were growing closer, but Lauren hadn't thought for one minute that it would reach this level so quickly.

She cleared the painful lump from her throat before speaking. "Well, I just wanted to call and apologize, and to wish you a belated happy birthday."

" _Thanks, Lauren."_ Lauren could hear Bo's smile over the phone, but could no longer return it.

"I've got to get back to work," Lauren said. "Talk to you soon."

She listened to Bo sign off - and Bo sounded a little confused at the abrupt end to the conversation - but Lauren didn't want to hear anymore. She'd wanted to make things up to Bo, but now she'd just been reminded that Bo's life went on without her, and with other people. Anyone, in fact, but Lauren.

Impulsively, she abruptly dialed another number on speed dial, and waited impatiently for the other end to pick up.

"Where's a decent place to grab a drink in this town that is the absolute opposite of the Dal?" Lauren said without greeting.

She listened to the answer. "No, not this weekend. Tonight."

Another long pause.

"And Vex?" She thought once again of Bo and Tamsin. "Pick some place human where I might actually -" she paused. "Um, enjoy the scenery," she added, hoping Vex understood what she meant.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren nursed her second gin and tonic and watched the florescent properties of the beverage glow in the ultraviolet light of the club. Vex had abandoned her about fifteen minutes before. After surmising that this particular club didn't offer his brand of entertainment, he'd left to find greener - or perhaps more wicked - pastures.

The large room was at about half capacity, with beautiful women of all shapes and sizes mingling in pairs or groups, and Lauren had to admit that Vex had chosen well. The music was loud but not overpowering, the mood festive, the lights dim as expected but at least not wildly flashing like some kind of amphetamine-fueled rave, and the decor included freshly cut flowers and large mounted mirrors.

She tried to remember the last time she'd been in a lesbian bar and realized that it had been nearly a decade. Back before Bo. Before the Fae. Before the Congo. Back when she'd been with Nadia.

Lauren shut down that line of thought immediately.

She decided that she'd ventured far enough out of her comfort zone, and would leave as soon as she finished her drink. It was, after all, decent gin.

"Have you solved the world's problems yet?" A warm, melodic voice nearby interrupted her musing.

Lauren looked up and into the gaze of a tall, dark-haired stranger. Her eyes were clear and bright, and could have been gray or blue or green - it was hard for Lauren to tell in the odd light of the club. She was fit, with a broad shoulders but a feminine jaw, and wavy dark hair with an expensive cut that fell past her shoulders.

Lauren's quick glance from head to toe finally landed back on the small smile that graced the woman's face, with clearly defined cheekbones and delicate brow. She wore a tailored dress shirt that fit her perfectly, unbuttoned just low enough to reveal the curve of her breasts, and flared at the hip to show off the lovely curves of hip and thigh. Dark jeans and boots completed the ensemble.

In short, if Lauren had to pick a type, this woman was hers.

"Come again?" Lauren felt a bit flustered.

"You look like you're thinking pretty hard. Not sure this is the best place to do that."

Lauren nervously smiled. "That's probably true." She stared at the woman blankly for a moment, sure that she was supposed to say something, but had no idea what it should be. The pause grew awkward while the woman continued to smile at her.

"Alexa." The woman spoke clearly and put Lauren out of her misery.

"Lauren."

Alexa leaned into the bar. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Lauren."

Lauren wasn't sure what to say in response.

"Buy you another drink?" Alexa asked.

Lauren was about to decline, but then remembered why she'd come here in the first place. "Sure. I mean, yes, please."

So they drank and made idle conversation. Alexa was a sheriff's deputy, but didn't want to talk about it much. Lauren said she was a doctor at a small medical clinic, but didn't want to talk much about that either. They decided to pass the time by passing judgment on some young butches in the corner of the bar who were posturing and shoving each other back and forth.

The music changed, and Alexa asked Lauren to dance. Again, Lauren considered declining, but then Alexa just smiled, took her by the hand and led her to the dance floor before she could refuse.

 _Oh, who doesn't love a butch on the streets,_ Lauren laughed to herself.

Alexa was a strong and steady lead, without being pushy, and the dance was an enjoyable one for Lauren. Alexa's firm hand navigated to the small of Lauren's back, and Lauren felt a light twinge of arousal at the forward gesture. For a moment, she closed her eyes, and relaxed into the simple pleasure of a slow dance with a beautiful woman.

Then she opened her eyes and looked around the room again, and realized that probably every single woman in the room was human. And each one of them had no idea of the terrifying world that existed beside their own - and that, at any time, that world could infringe upon this world, and a person could disappear forever, without a trace.

Lauren remembered that she was a target, that death threats surrounded her, and that no human lover would stand a chance in the world she was a part of now. This was a mistake, a fool's errand that was in no way a serious option, and she'd probably put everyone in this room in danger just by being here.

Not only that, but Alexa smelled wrong. Not bad - it was pleasant, really - but it wasn't - spicy - enough for her tastes. Bo's face flashed in her mind. And in that moment, this brief field trip into the normal world she'd left behind years ago - this night was over.

She pulled away and stopped dancing. Alexa looked at her in question, and Lauren smiled sadly, and brushed a thumb across Alexa's truly beautiful jaw.

"Sorry," Lauren apologized. "It's a little too soon for me." It was as good of a let down as any.

Alexa looked disappointed.

 _Oh, honey,_ Lauren thought to herself as she left Alexa on the dance floor and headed for the exit,  _you don't even know about the bullet you just dodged._

Lauren walked out of the club and didn't look back.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Less than an hour later, Lauren unlocked the wide steel door of her loft, and slid it aside to enter. The gin had worn off, but her limbs felt loose and warm. Still, she remembered to lock the door and arm the security system once inside.

Lauren was tired, but that was par for the course and she knew she wouldn't sleep. Since Lisa's murder, the nightmares had returned, and she now considered her daily run a major security risk. She was back to fueling herself with coffee and iron human will.

She hung up her coat, tossed her car keys on a nearby table, and headed for her lab. The preliminary analysis of her newly theorized algorithm should be nearly complete, and it was time to start constructing and testing new samples. Lauren felt increased pressure to move this experiment forward.

Figurative walls felt like they were closing in on her. Lisa's murder was unsolved. Three human bodies had been stolen from the clinic and were still missing. A Fae cult of some kind had resurged and was somehow connected to three other murders Dyson had brought to her attention.

And Cassie wouldn't stop talking about some terrible - thing - that was coming for them all.

Whatever was coming for them, Lauren must be ready. She would not be another human statistic, so she needed to be stronger, better - more - than she was.

This new serum was the key, but here, by herself in the lab with no one to betray her secret, she was honest with herself on two counts.

One, this serum was for her, and her alone. And, two, it wasn't because some great evil was coming their way.

It was because Lauren didn't want to be with anyone else, so she needed to figure out how to be with Bo.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_Once again, the odds are against us._

_The most powerful Fae family that ever lived is behind the mysteries we couldn't solve, including Lisa's murder and Cassie's mysterious suitor. The bodies of the three humans who were killed in the elevator crash weren't stolen - they were possessed by three Fae after some ritual involving the three other human deaths we discovered._

_And Bo hasn't said anything, but I can't help but wonder if her father is somehow involved._

_My thoughts about the strength of our foe is similar to those I had when we dealt with the Garuda: keep calm, stick to the facts, focus on the task at hand. It saved me then - and led to the success I had with Lachlan's venom - so I can only hope that it can save me now._

_So back to the facts._

_I have discovered that certain elements of the Heraclid's genetic makeup are exactly what I'm searching for, and coupled with the work that I'm doing using the Leanan Sidhe characteristics as a base from which to work - this may be the solution that I need._

_The Heraclids are humans, descended from Hercules himself, who was the son of Zeus. Zeus, who was believed to be a god, but may in fact simply be an extremely powerful Fae, capable of feeding off the adulation of himself and his own children._

_These Heraclids have exceptional genes, with an inherent mutation that makes them almost impervious to any number of toxic strains. It's fascinating, and I'm still wrestling with the possible effect this groundbreaking information may have on my own research._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

Lauren threw the pen down, and looked out the window. Severe thunderstorms had pounded the city the night before, but seemed to have settled down to a fitful rain that had been falling all day.

She looked back over her latest entry, and tried to muster her earlier enthusiasm about her new discovery, but thoughts of Bo had taken hold of her mood and distracted her from the possible breakthrough for her serum.  _Not that it'll change anything,_ she thought,  _even if it works._

Lauren was pretty sure that she could pledge her undying love for Bo all day every day, but it wouldn't resolve most of the many issues between them.  _Is it supposed to be this hard, or should I just give up?_

Only yesterday, Bo had called while Lauren was working at the lab to ask her to run some tests. Bo and Tamsin had posed as cheerleaders at a local university to solve a murder that ultimately led to the discovery of the Heraclids.

Bo had insisted that she'd called because she needed Lauren, not just a doctor, but Lauren knew that Bo was sleeping with Tamsin. If Lauren grew too cold, and maneuvered a little distance between them, Bo was suddenly front and center. If Lauren got too close, Bo was suddenly sleeping with someone else - Dyson, Tamsin, who knows who else.

Bo wouldn't come closer, but she didn't exactly go away either, and Lauren wasn't sure anymore if she was upset because Bo had so many other lovers, or because Lauren wasn't presently one of them.

She shook her head in consternation.  _Jesus, it's a goddamned lesbian soap opera._ No matter what Lauren did, there was this distance between them at Bo's insistence.

And yet, Lauren continued working on the one thing she thought would solve so many of their problems.

"Dr. L!" Sam only perfunctorily knocked on the door as he barged in. "You need to turn on the news. We've got one hell of a show coming our way."

Lauren quickly opened a desk drawer and pulled out a remote for the television mounted across her office on the wall. She didn't even have to change the channel - an emergency broadcast was already in progress.

After listening for a moment to the less-than-stoic newscaster's urgent warnings, and reading the scrolling text across both the top and the bottom of the screen, Lauren now knew that multiple F3 tornadoes had set down in multiple locations, and one F4 had recently touched down only a few miles from the clinic.

Most alarmingly, no sign of the thunderstorms or tornadoes had been predicted in the recent forecast. All of it had suddenly besieged the city with no warning at all.

Cassie had warned them about a storm. Lauren hoped this wasn't it, but there was no other explanation.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Bo stood frozen, clearly gobsmacked. "Huh."

Lauren was confused, and pissed. "I see your huh, and I raise you, are you freaking kidding me?"  _What the fuck?_ "Evony Fleurette de Marquise, I despise you!" She yelled at the surveillance system that she was pretty sure had been installed in her lab.

Bo, Dyson and Tamsin had shown up at the clinic not long ago with survivors from the worst of the storm damage. Dyson and Tamsin had returned to the streets to look for more survivors, but for some reason, Bo had stayed at the clinic.

Moments later, a power blackout hit, stressing the clinic's already limited resources. To add insult to injury, the cryo-container that Evony had forced upon Lauren and insisted held the oldest, most dangerous and powerful Fae in the history of all things Fae, had ran out of power - despite the many failsafes Lauren had in place.

The attached alarm system had vehemently stated warnings for half an hour, so while Sam evacuated the entire facility and rerouted patients to other hospitals, Lauren and Bo had worked like mad to move the cursed container from the cold storage to the only secure place in the entire building - the critical care unit.

Finally, locked in the care unit's chamber behind clear plexiglass as thick as Lauren's wrist, the timer had expired, the battery power failed, and the cryo-container flew open with a burst of steam.

And revealed absolutely nothing.

 _No Fae. Nada. Zilch. Oh, that_ **bitch** _._ Lauren had cleared the entire facility because of this goddamned box, and that kind of scenario always put patients in danger. She unlocked the security door to take a closer look at the empty container.

"And yet you continue to work for her," Bo accused. "All of this is for her, to make her Fae again."

Suddenly, Lauren realized that Bo was seriously angry at her. She wasn't putting on a show for Evony's benefit. She didn't realize the room might be bugged. Bo was sincerely pissed. At Lauren.

Lauren stood incredulous. Did Bo really not know what Lauren was really doing here? Still? After all they'd been through these last few months?

Did she still think Lauren was actively working for the Dark?

"Yeah. Yeah, it is." Lauren gestured to her ear, and saw Bo finally understand that they might be under surveillance. Lauren looked around and saw the small emergency AM/FM radio that someone had found during the storm, walked over and turned it on. The tinny music of an old love song provided a little background noise, and Lauren quickly thought of another distraction for any unwanted viewers.

Lauren guided Bo to the edge of the camera's range, and put her arms around her, simulating a romantic dance. In a low voice, she asked Bo to trust her.

As quickly and calmly as possible, she told Bo the truth about her work in the clinic and lab, and how much it meant to her. That she only had a short while in her life to make a difference, and that she was working only for herself.

For a moment, there in the low blue battery lights, her breath heavy in the close heat of Bo's body and the room's air now thick with the lack of air conditioning, Lauren was - just for a few seconds - right where she wanted to be.

And then Lauren realized the mistake she'd made, putting herself in Bo's arms in such close quarters. She smelled Bo's hair, her skin and suddenly every suppressed desire came roaring into the present moment. She was so quickly and completely aroused that her hands started to shake.

_Oh, fuck._

She knew she was done for, because Bo would sense every slight change to Lauren's biochemistry - oh, how they'd tested  _that_ over and over again in times past - which meant that, right about now, Bo would notice the change in Lauren's scent -

Lauren raised her head to look into Bo's eyes, and confirmed that Bo knew everything.

And then Bo kissed her, her lips pressed lightly to Lauren's, as if reintroducing herself gently to a skittish lover. Come to think of it, that's exactly what Lauren was, but there was no need for such a tentative touch.

Lauren wasn't going anywhere. They were alone. Her patients were safe. The cryo-container had been a false alarm. She was responsible only for herself, and there was no need for her to be anywhere but here, right now.

Lauren wrapped an arm around Bo's shoulders and deepened the kiss.

Bo pulled away from Lauren and looked her in the eyes, visibly serious. "Are you done hiding how you feel about me?" she asked.

Lauren was incredulous. What would it take for this woman to believe her?

"Jesus, Bo," Lauren whispered. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm yours?"

Bo looked flustered. "I didn't know, Lauren." She broke eye contact, and looked everywhere but at Lauren. "I thought all this lab stuff for the Dark Fae was, I don't know, real-"

Lauren sighed, and Bo looked her way again.  _I am in love with an idiot,_ Lauren thought. Her lips quirked a bit, and then Lauren raised one finger to brush across Bo's full, succulent lips.

It was a challenge, and Bo broke first. Bo leaned into Lauren, and Lauren felt Bo sigh against her lips.

Once upon a time, Lauren had wondered at the confidence that seemed to take her over when she touched Bo. Not anymore. Bo was shameless, completely certain of her appeal and skill, and it was a beautiful thing for Lauren to behold. When Bo touched Lauren, it was contagious. Now, Lauren threw caution to the wind when she tasted Bo's kiss, and lost all awareness of time and place and crisis.

Lauren had forgotten how time could stop and the outside world could melt away when she held Bo like this. Right now, this moment, Bo was all hers.

She unzipped Bo's top, drew her fingertips across her clavicles, down to her breasts, cupped them with her hands, and brushed her thumbs across Bo's nipples as she leaned forward again for another kiss.

In response, Bo moaned, opened Lauren's lab coat, and slid hot fingers under Lauren's shirt at the waist and against Lauren's warm skin.

Seconds later, Bo pushed the lab coat off Lauren's shoulders, attacked her shirt until she managed to remove it, then wrapped her strong arms around Lauren's waist, lifted her completely off the ground and carried her into the small room of the care unit.

It seemed to Lauren that they were completely naked in the blink of an eye, even though she knew that was impossible, but the urgency was unmistakeable.  _This_ had to happen  _now._

Finally naked, finally horizontal on the exam table, the kisses grew hot. Lauren drew back and looked at Bo, and as sure as knew the sun would rise tomorrow, she knew Bo was hungry and aching. The naked need on Bo's face was intoxicating, and Lauren felt something low in her belly move in response.

"Lauren, I can't -"

This was no time for languid foreplay, as any delay would cause Bo physical pain. That was unacceptable to Lauren. She pushed her hand down Bo's abdomen, brushed through wiry curls, and - knowing she'd find her ready - parted her and stroked the prominent flesh with sure fingers.

Bo growled in response, and Lauren couldn't help the small smile on her own lips.

"I've got you, lover," Lauren said lowly, and watched Bo's beautiful face as Bo came almost instantly. Bo's eyes were closed tightly as the orgasm moved throughout her entire body, tremors visible to Lauren's eyes. Lauren knew that once wouldn't be enough - that they were just getting started, and she moved to thrust her fingers inside Bo's wet heat almost roughly.

Bo's eyes flashed open, now bright with blue iridescence. Lauren's smile grew wider as she withdrew her fingers and thrust harder and a little faster. Her heart ached to see near wonder on Bo's face. Still, Bo looked like she was wrestling herself for control - like she was holding something back.

Bo shifted her legs, the insides of her thighs pressed to the outsides of Lauren's, and raised herself up on deceptively strong arms. Lauren's confidence surged, and she slid her free hand across Bo's delicious triceps and the firm muscular deltoid and trapezius. She gripped the back of Bo's head then hooked her arm over Bo's shoulders for leverage, and pulled herself up, freeing her other arm to drive into her lover at a feverish pace.

"Lauren," Bo warned, but Lauren ignored it. She was going to make love to all of Bo, especially the succubus within, and if the best way to do that was to fuck Bo senseless, then that was exactly what she was going to do.

"I know, baby," Lauren said, staring up into her eyes, looking for something in that deep blue that she was determined to find.

"Lauren, I mean it."

After all this time, Lauren realized that Bo was still afraid of hurting her. Bo never seemed to understand the truth - that Lauren didn't care if Bo did.

"I'm not stopping, Bo." Lauren pressed the heel of her hand against Bo's clitoris with a sweet, deliciously slow grind, then resumed her previous pace. She watched Bo's face closely, saw the precise moment when Bo gave herself over, surrendering to the possible consequences if she lost control.

_Come on, baby. I know you want to._

"You're going to get more of me than you've planned if you keep this up, woman," Bo said, in the odd-split-octave voice Lauren had only heard from Bo in the heat of battle.  _YES._   _There you are._  Now,  _all_  of Bo was present and accounted for, and Lauren's heart soared.

"I think I can handle it," Lauren replied, out of breath at her exertion, but refusing to slow down.

She felt Bo's muscles tighten, all over her body -  _oh my_ **gods** _, that's hot -_ Bo's blue eyes bright and nearly pulsing, heard Bo moan and curse in that strange yet exhilarating voice, watched her breasts sway, nipples tight and just begging to be -

Lauren lowered her head, seized a tight nipple on her tongue with a moan, and drew it into her mouth to bite none too gently.

Bo growled, and for a moment, Lauren's world stopped spinning and was silent and still. Her lips released their prize.

"Give it up, succubus," she whispered, and watched triumphantly as Bo roared and came undone.

 

**Chapter 6**

Lauren nearly wept at the beauty that was Bo coming over and over again.

Bo moaned, then cried out when the pleasure seemed almost too much for her, her eyes clenched shut, every muscle tight as the sensations ebbed and flowed inside her. Lauren felt every contraction against her slick fingers, and claimed each orgasm as a prize.

Finally, Bo relaxed her arms and sank her body deliciously onto Lauren's. Lauren slid her now bereft hand wetly across Bo's lower back as Bo's hips and thighs moved steadily in a lover's rhythm.

Lauren felt like her body tingled with electricity. Bo's hands reached up and gripped Lauren's hair tightly, her kiss deep and languid, then firmly drew her hands down Lauren's body. Lauren gasped as Bo's fingers pulsed against her breasts.

Already aroused beyond belief, Lauren was now nearly overwhelmed by the ache she felt in every single erogenous zone of her body. Her nipples were so tight they almost hurt, every nerve was singing beneath her skin, and she felt herself begin to lightly perspire everywhere.

That pulse of Bo's was dangerous, yes, but when applied lightly to Lauren's skin, it was truly a wicked delight - she felt painted by need wherever Bo touched, as Bo drew them down below her breasts, down her abdomen, lower still and then -

_Oh, sweet Christ._

Now, those pulsing fingers were inside her, and she closed her eyes against the sweetness of it.

Lauren was beyond speech at the moment, so when Bo slowed down, she could only moan in protest.

Bo laughed - and even that was seductive. "Thought you said you could take it?" Bo sounded quite pleased with herself.

Lauren swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat, tried to speak and failed. She took a deep breath and tried again. "No comment."

Bo brushed kisses across her collarbone, and Lauren felt Bo's tongue briefly on her chin and then suddenly she felt as if Bo was  _everywhere,_ completely surrounding her. It was at once the safest and most dangerous place in the world - secure in Bo's arms, yet utterly defenseless against the instinctive and involuntary response of her own body to Bo's touch.

"Bo." Lauren was lost in the build-up to the orgasm that she knew was going to sear her entire body. " _Gods_." A wave of heat washed over her and culminated right where Bo was touching her. She was about ready to reach up and pull out her own hair, it felt so damned good.

Bo suddenly stopped all movement. Lauren fought herself from screaming in frustration at ecstasy denied.

"Don't you dare stop."  _I'm so close, and it's been_ ** _so long…_**

Lauren tightened her arms around Bo. Bo may have stopped moving, but Lauren was too far gone to do the same. She raised her hips to thrust herself again Bo's unmoving fingers, desperate to continue the pleasure she felt in her entire body, trying not to beg.

Bo moaned at Lauren's flagrant desire, and dropped her head. Her forehead pressed against Lauren's heart as she once more thrust into Lauren over and over again.

"So good." Bo's whispers reached Lauren's ears in the thick quiet. "Gods, you feel so good."

Lauren cried out - the only way she could agree - until a moment later when she found her voice. "More," she said, then groaned when Bo gave her exactly that. She looked down at Bo, but couldn't see her face, and that just would not do.

Lauren reached to grab hold of Bo's head with both hands, tightened her fingers in Bo's hair, then clutched it tightly to raise Bo's head so she could see Bo's eyes.

In another moment, after another sweet pulse from Bo's fingers still steadily moving inside her, the fullness between her thighs built to a high that tightened every muscle in Lauren's body.

Lauren looked in Bo's shimmering blue eyes, and whispered as she came. "Here."

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren was curled up on her side on the examination table as Bo's body pressed against the length of her back. The room was overly warm and Bo's natural body temperature was always higher than Lauren's human normal, but there was no way Lauren was going to pull away from her, no matter how hot the damned room was.

Bo's arm wrapped around her waist, and she brushed light kisses on the back of Lauren's neck and shoulder.

Lauren closed her eyes with a small smile as the world faded back in for a moment. It felt decadent - and like she was getting away with something - to lie quietly with Bo during the blackout while the end of the world raged on.

_Darkness, tornadoes, lightning, chaos all around, and where does she come? Here, to find me, to make sure I'm safe._

"I've never stopped loving you, you know," Bo said into the quiet of the room's thick air, as if she'd heard Lauren's thoughts.

Lauren nearly burst with happiness hearing that Bo's heart echoed her own, but she knew very well that the real issue between then was so much more than how they felt about each other. "Me, either, Bo, but love wasn't really our problem."

And then she cursed herself for ruining the moment.  _I really should just learn to take what I can get._

"Not that I'm overly concerned with problems right now," she said in apology, not wanting to burst the bubble. She pressed Bo's arm tighter against her to keep Bo from pulling away, and gently pushed her hips back impossibly closer to Bo's.

Bo sighed. "I wish we could lie here forever."

Lauren didn't exactly agree. The exam table was terribly uncomfortable - not that she currently gave a damn - but she certainly appreciated the sentiment.

"Well," she replied lightly, "since tonight is about seizing the moment, why don't I pop open my Chateau Mouton Rothschild?" Honestly, she couldn't think of a better occasion for opening that bottle.

"I have no idea what you just said," Bo said dryly.

Lauren laughed, leaned up to kiss Bo's perfect lips, and then stood up to find her clothes.

If it was the end of the world, this was the perfect way to go.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_Samuel Ahmed Tarkani was an exceptional doctor and a brilliant scientist, and possessed a delightful sense of humor and a generous spirit._

_He was also a Serket, a Fae that thrives on giving healing and restoring vitality, which makes perfect sense, although I didn't find that out until after his death._

_There's a lot that I didn't know about Sam, but I know this much: his death is most certainly and without question my fault - another mistake in my life for which I can never atone._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

The next day, the weather was perfect and clear outside the clinic. Lauren didn't even see it though she stared out her office window. Once again, she wondered how it was possible to feel so much self-loathing and yet continue to function.

Last night, after those wonderful moments with Bo, she'd dressed and come upon Sam in the outer room. He'd returned to the clinic after evacuating the patients, but didn't respond when Lauren spoke his name. She reached to touch his shoulder, thinking he hadn't heard her, but then Sam collapsed, dead, right in front of her.

There'd been something in the cryo-container after all. Eros, an old and powerful Fae, had been invisible. They'd never seen him escape.

Soon after Lauren found Sam, she and Bo discovered Evony and Vex practically looting the clinic, searching for the cure that Lauren was supposed to be working on that would restore Evony's Fae powers. Vex soon disappeared, but Bo and Lauren had used Evony as bait to catch Eros, since they found out she'd captured Eros in the first place.

It worked, and Eros was soon vanquished. And the world collapsed in on Lauren and Bo once again.

Bo had left Lauren at the clinic while she went off to check on the others - Dyson, Trick, Tamsin. She said something felt wrong to her - her instincts were pulling her back to the clubhouse. Sadly, Lauren told Bo she understood, since she had responsibilities of her own.

After the storms had past, Lauren had notified her staff to return. They'd retrieved the more serious Fae patients and treated them, and then the staff had gathered together to mourn Sam's loss.

His death weighed so heavily on Lauren that she thought she might collapse - after all, she had been the one to open the chamber and release the invisible Fae.

And then she'd made love with Bo while it killed him.

Now, she sat, guilt-ridden, in her office, a stack of invoices resting beneath one hand. After the terrible experience with Eros, Lauren had decided to build permanent chambers for the care - or incarceration - of powerful Fae.

Ultimately she had decided to not ask Evony's permission or seek her funding. In penance - one that had no chance of actually redeeming her - she had used her own money, and hired a team of Dark Fae contractors.

A trio of ogres was currently building another critical care unit near the cold storage that had housed the cryo-container during its brief stay. It just so happened that the unit could also be used as a large cell. They'd only been working for a few hours, but thanks to their strength and skills, and Lauren's willingness to pay any cost, they'd be done by nightfall.

She thought back to the moment she'd spoken to the staff earlier that day. Lauren had stood before them all just as she had after Lisa's death, and with a halting voice told them, again, what they all already knew. The clinic wasn't safe, that working in it threatened their lives, and that she understood if anyone needed to tender a resignation.

This time, not a single remaining human or Fae had opted to leave.

It was such an odd feeling in her body, this simultaneous exultation and despair. She had lost someone she'd come to consider a friend - and if not a confidant, then at least someone with whom she could share the joys and challenges of her work.

But then, she'd remember why it was that her skin tingled all over, why her blood still sang, why her heart - so recently broken and in pieces - dared hope once again, even though she knew it was fruitless.

By her estimation, she and Bo had been alone in the lab for less than two hours, but the impact of that time in her arms was completely disproportionate and Bo had once again shifted the axis of Lauren's entire world.

When they were together, the reasons why they couldn't be would fade away. There was a cocoon of intimacy that made Lauren feel like she was the only person in the world for Bo - and Bo treated her as if she were precious, exalted and cherished.

In those moments, Lauren's heart would hope that this time, it would be different - this time they could be together, but then something would come between them.

She'd spoken to Bo once again late last night. After Trick had called Lauren to warn her about the Ancients' oracles searching for Bo in the storm, Lauren had immediately called Bo, but Bo had been standoffish on her end of the call.

 _Aren't we going to talk about this? At all?_ Lauren had thought to herself, but hadn't spoken it out loud.

" _Let Dyson and Tamsin know I'm okay. I just need some time alone to process all this,"_ Bo had said quietly into the phone.

 _Guess not._ "Of course, Bo!" Lauren had replied. "Anything you need."  _I love you._

" _Bye, Lauren."_

"Bye," Lauren had said, but Bo had already ended the call.

Belatedly, Lauren wondered why the oracles hadn't come to her, then realized the truth - that she'd already been with her heart's desire. And secretly, in her heart of hearts, she wondered if she would have given up those moments with Bo if it would have saved Sam's life.

She didn't like what it said about her that she didn't have a ready answer.

Between despondent bouts of guilt over Sam, Lauren consoled herself by playing the memories repeatedly in her mind of Bo with her, over her, inside her and felt - euphoric.

Yet some part of Lauren was determined not to hope. Though Bo had told her that she loved Lauren, Bo had many lovers, and no doubt shared such intimacy with each of them. Lauren was not special - in fact, her being human made her less than the rest.

In other words, considering what they were up against and the limits of Lauren's physiology – not to mention the ticking time bomb that was Lauren's human lifespan - this may have been the last time she'd ever be with Bo.

XX - XX – XX – XX - XX

There had been times in Lauren's world when her patience, courage and will had been tested and she'd somehow risen to the challenge. Lachlan's dungeons. The Garuda's madhouse. A Lich's dinner table with a knife at her neck, seconds from death. Massimo.

Today, she was about to be bested by a software application's status bar.

She'd kicked off the latest batch of simulations the night before, and they were  _still_  running. Lauren had years of experience when it came to waiting for test results, but this was different, and she couldn't stand it. Her skin was crawling with impatience.

Lauren finally left her lab in frustration and looked around the loft.  _Maybe I can clean something._

Except her place was immaculate.

She nearly growled.

Twenty minutes later she'd gone so far as to build a target at the end of the largest room in the loft, and was vigorously attacking it with throwing stars to improve her percentage of accuracy.

Just before she released the last throwing star in her hand, a notification bell sounded from her cell. Her throw went wide and ricocheted of the brick wall.

She grabbed her phone and headed back into the small laboratory.

Lauren often thought that so much of science was two steps forward followed by one step back. She was elated to discover that the new formula had successfully bonded to a simulated human test case, and that after a brief stabilization period, the human cells exhibited the augmented Fae characteristics.

Over time, however, the augmentations began to degrade.

Lauren sighed.  _So it'll work, but not for long._ She stared at the results on her computer monitor, trying to think of what to try next.

Something was tickling the back of her mind. Something about a scientist she'd studied who'd inadvertently extended the longevity of animal cells as part of a greater experiment. Where had she seen that?

She froze with insight, still staring at the screen, but no longer seeing it.

Lauren quickly entered the keyboard combination to lock the display, then ran from the room, not even turning off the lights. She grabbed her keys and headed for the door.

She was going back to the Dark archives.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Eric wasn't working the desk when she arrived at the Dark tower and headed straight for the sub-basements, but she was still allowed access - although the Fae behind the desk looked at her long and hard.

Lauren had learned long ago that her best bet in situations like these was to avoid eye contact, greet positively but not cheerfully, and walk on as if she belonged.

Two hours later, Lauren had combed the archives and now found herself in quite the rabbit hole. One paper in a modern journal had cited another series of experiments in an older journal, which led to an even older reference, and so on.

While she'd found the original reference that had popped into her head and sent her here in the first place, she'd discovered that the research had made a series of assumptions with which she was not familiar, and would therefore have to corroborate on her own.

So, she navigated the rabbit hole trying to find the foundation under all those building blocks.

The latest discovery was a yellowed journal dating back to the early 1950s. She sighed when it too referenced an earlier study. She made note of the new clue, then walked over to a nearby terminal to track down its physical location in the archives.

Lauren noted with annoyance that the results of the quick computer search pointed towards the deep archives.

She didn't enjoy going down there. That was where she'd heard the Morrigan threaten Bo's life, and, worse, that was where Massimo had taken her hostage those few months ago. It brought back too many memories, and reminded her of the distance that had been between her and Bo at the time.

Now, of course, there was a  _different_ distance.

She sighed, and headed ever deeper into all-but-forgotten documentation.

It took only a few moments to track down the volume she was looking for. Lauren pulled it from the shelf, opened the cover to the handwritten table of contents, and began to peruse it, but then stopped in minute shock.

She didn't recognize the author's name and wasn't familiar with his work, but did notice that the experiments therein were conducted in the early 1940s, and it was written in German.

There was a brief summary page after the table of contents, and she read with great distaste that the scientist had been Dark Fae, but the experiments so extensively detailed in this volume had been conducted on humans. She didn't read any further, and didn't need to.

Here was the line she would not cross.

This was a dead end. She'd have to figure out her next steps on her own.

Before she had a moment to process what this roadblock meant, she flinched in surprise when she heard a crash and curse nearby. Another curse followed, and she moved closer to the noise almost against her will.

It was Vex cursing, and it was coming from what used to be Massimo's lair. Lauren stopped just outside the doorway to the darkened room as she watched Vex dig through drawers and shelves, looking unsuccessfully for something.

The shock wore off and Lauren's curiosity got the better of her.

"What are you doing here?"

Vex quickly turned to face her and his eyebrows rose in surprise. "Doc?" He clenched one hand repeatedly, but Lauren didn't think he was about to attack her with his Mesmer abilities. In fact, she noticed, it was the hand she'd - twice - reattached. "What am I doing here? I'm technically Dark Fae. What in bloody hell are  _you_ doing here?"

"Research," she answered absently, as she pondered the interesting tidbit that Vex referred to himself as only "technically" Dark Fae. Very interesting, indeed.

Her doctor's instincts kicked in. "What's wrong with the hand?"

Vex tried to play it off, but Lauren persisted.

"It aches like mad," Vex admitted. "Massimo was a tosser, but he had this salve that worked wonders, and I can't find it."

She beckoned him her way - there was no way she was stepping in that room - and took his hand in hers when he stepped into the dimly lit hall. After a brief examination, she applied a bit of manual pressure to key points on his hand and wrist, and Vex moaned in relief.

"Oh, Doc," he said with a grin. "You are worth all the fuss, aren't you?"

Lauren uncomfortably rolled her eyes, but continued to massage his hand. "You need to take your physical therapy a bit more seriously. I did give you instructions."

"Yeah, yeah." Vex brushed her off by changing the subject. "What kind of research?"

"The scientific kind," she responded tersely, then looked past him to the dark room full of who knew what.

"Why is this place still here?"

Vex looked over his shoulder then down at her hands to watch her work. "No one is brave enough to go through it. That boy had his hands in a lot of dirty and dangerous pies, and had the room booby-trapped. I set one off just before you came in." He let out another moan, though it made Lauren want to smack him in annoyance.

"I'm sure there's a security team that could handle it," Lauren insisted.

"Maybe," Vex replied. "But he did some pretty serious work for one of the Elders once. Nobody wants to cross anyone that high up. Besides, no one could figure out what the hell he was working on." He looked up at her curiously. "Though you probably could."

Lauren's eyes snapped to Vex's. "Like hell."

Vex shrugged. "Just saying. You are the brains of both outfits, now, aren't you, Doc?"

She dropped his hand - though not unkindly - and stepped back. For a moment, she feared that he might be right.

He threw an evil grin her way and walked away from her towards the hall that led to the elevator. "Thanks for the hand job!"

Lauren stood in the hallway after Vex had left, staring into the room. It took her a moment to realize that she was visually cataloguing its contents until, in disgust, she abruptly turned to leave. She needed to get the hell out of this place. Nothing good came of it.

Moments later, as she neared her car parked in the tower's garage and pulled out the key fob to unlock the door, she heard footsteps and looked up in trepidation.

"Dr. Lewis?" A thinly built young man in a plain blue uniform walked unthreateningly towards her - not that Lauren believed that he wasn't a threat. "Delivery for you."

He stopped just out of arms reach and extended a single off-white envelope in her direction.

After a moment, she took it from him and looked at it closely. The messenger walked away without another word.

The outside of the envelope was unadorned save two details. "Dr. Lauren Lewis" was written in beautiful classic script across the front, and the back was wax sealed and imprinted with the odd three-tailed insignia of the Fae cult Dyson had been researching - the one that pointed to the Ancients.

Lauren held the envelope in slightly trembling hands for a long moment then she looked up to find the messenger, but he was gone.

Non-threatening, her ass.

She decided to at least get in the car before opening the envelope.

Once seated inside, Lauren locked the car doors and started the engine as a precaution. She broke the wax seal of the envelope and pulled out the card within.

_Come join us for a gathering._

_Libations and fun._

_Dress to impress_

_or you will be turned away._

She flipped the card over to see a date, time and address. No other information was provided.

 _What the fuck?_ Why Lauren? What kind of gathering? And what did they want with her?

The next thought sent a shiver down her spine.

 _How the hell did they know I was here?_ Lauren spent most of her daylight hours at the clinic and had only visited the archives on a whim.

She jumped when her cell phone chose that moment to loudly ring and she pulled it out of her jeans pocket to see who was calling. Surprisingly, it was Bo.

"Hey," Lauren answered softly, then listened to the business-like tone from Bo on the other end.

She wasn't the only one who'd received an invitation.

 

**Chapter 7**

It worked.

After weeks of development, multiple failures, setbacks, and complete and utter cock-ups, Lauren's latest formula  _worked._ A sample of her blood, after being injected with the new formula, exhibited Fae characteristics similar to Evony's original baseline, and continued to be stable at the end of the simulation period.

Lauren sat at her desk in her loft's lab, looking once more at the results. If her theory was sound, then this could extend her own lifespan by…

She was careful not to hope, but Evony was a few thousand years old, and it was almost impossible for Lauren to contain all of her enthusiasm.

Lauren did feel uncomfortable about the fact that she'd had help, but it was only a simple clue, really - though it had come from an unwelcome source. She pushed that thought out of her mind for the moment, and focused on her immediate success.

Some questions had arisen: what was the optimal dosage? Would it result in a permanent biological shift? If not, how long would it last before it needed to be re-administered? What were the possible side effects?

And one - small - problem remained.

The only way to test its efficacy and get the answers to her many questions would be to inject it into a live subject. Lauren could think of no other way to prove, without a doubt, that it would extend her lifespan.

Though excited at the possibility that it might work, Lauren now had to decide if - and when - she was going to test the serum on herself.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

 _Bo wants to be with me. She picked a hell of a place to tell me - in the enemy territory that was the cocktail party hosted by the Ancients, waiting for them to attack us at any moment - but she wants us try again. That night together during the blackout meant as much to her as it did to me, and she wants to be with_ **me**.  _And though at first I was surprised and unsure of how to proceed, how could I possibly say no to her, when it's all I really want?_

_As for the Ancients, Ze and Hera remain a threat, but their daughter, Iris…_

_Trick, Dyson and his son, Mark, Bo and myself had each received invitations to a "gathering" hosted by the trio of Ancients. We arrived to find a surprise party - for Bo, of all people - and over the course of the evening, discovered that while all three of the Ancients are dangerous, Iris was the most powerful and posed the greatest threat._

_Iris had possessed the body of a teenager, Cece, and was infatuated with Mark. We soon discovered the extent and danger of her power, but she and Mark had left the gathering, and by the time we split up and tracked them to a nearby park, Mark was alone and mortally wounded._

_Dyson was frantic, and I was not optimistic about Mark's chances, but just before I had to admit that there was nothing more I could do, a doctor appeared from the growing crowd and had the tools and skill necessary to help me save Mark's life._

_The doctor in the park turned out to be Bo's father, a Dark Fae of the under-realms, summoned to earth by Bo in an attempt to save us all from Iris. Her father introduced himself to me and Dyson as Jack, but is better known as Hades, named by humans as the god of the underworld, and by Fae as one of the Ancients._

_I'm not sure what I expected - more visible malevolence, perhaps, or the face of true evil. He did, after all, keep Aiofe imprisoned in Hel. I have been exposed to powerful Dark Fae before - my first few meetings in the presence of Evony when she was the Morrigan were terrifying - so his cheerful demeanor is disquieting._

_But Jack helped us save Mark, and provided me with a valuable - though unsolicited - clue in my research that turned out to be exactly what I was looking for and it completely stabilized my formula. I'm just not sure what to make of him. I realize he can't be trusted, but he has been helpful and compliant - he does whatever Bo asks of him, and seems to genuinely want to spend time getting to know his daughter._

_Can it be as simple as that? I have known many Fae who have experienced a change of heart - Vex being the most obvious example - so why not Jack?_

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren watched Dyson slowly walk across the room that held the primary critical care unit where Mark was recovering. Bo had offered to tell Mark what had happened when she'd finally confronted Iris, but Dyson had insisted on breaking the news.

Now, Lauren and Bo were silent as they watched Dyson tell his son that his friend was dead.

"You ok?" Lauren asked. Bo turned to look dejectedly at Lauren.

"No matter what I do," Bo said sadly, tears in her eyes. "Someone always gets hurt."

Lauren tried to be encouraging. "Bo, you have saved so many, so many times." This entire fiasco with Ze, Hera and Iris had been doomed from the start. It was a miracle that they hadn't lost one of their own - and Mark had been damned close to dying. "Dyson, Kenzi, Tamsin." She paused for a moment. "Me."

Somehow, Bo's face seemed to fall a little further. "One day, I'm going to lose you, too."

Lauren's diaphragm dropped in dread. That was a little too close to home for her, and was in fact her greatest fear.

She decided in that moment that there was no more time to waste - test case or no, she would have to move forward with the serum.

"Well," Lauren replied, blinking back tears of her own. "Maybe you don't have to."

She took Bo's hand in her own, and changed the subject before they both fell apart. "Where's Jack?"

Bo wiped a tear from her face with her other hand, then cleared her throat to collect herself. "Actually, I kind of wanted to talk to you about that." She glanced briefly back to Dyson and Mark in the care unit, where the two men were quietly talking to each other.

"How can I help?" Lauren asked.

"I want Jack somewhere I can keep an eye on him, but I don't want him in the clubhouse or at the Dal. I know the Light compound has dungeons, but I don't want anyone else to get their hands on him either." She frowned. "I don't know what kind of allies he may have here, in this world, so I want him contained. Any ideas where we can lock him up until I figure out how to send him back to Tartarus?"

Lauren relaxed as much as she could given the situation. This was an easier problem to solve. "Actually, I know just the place."

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

A short time later, alone in her office at the clinic while Bo locked Jack up in the new security cell, Lauren briefly considered - one last time - the possibility of not taking the serum.

While the simulations had yielded positive results, there were still numerous unknowns that gave her pause. If she had more time, she might be able to discover what the possible side effects could be, but those kinds of extensive tests could take weeks. Or months.

Lauren couldn't wait that long.

She thought of Bo's face not long before, tears in her eyes, visibly heartbroken at the thought of losing Lauren. It twisted Lauren's own heart and that made the decision for her.

Lauren stood up to remove her lab coat, then rolled up one sleeve. After briefly swabbing herself with rubbing alcohol, she injected the serum into her vein, and then disposed of the syringe in a nearby receptacle.

For a moment, she stood behind her desk, leaning slightly forward with her hands flat beside the keyboard, wondering if this was the point from which there was truly no return.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Bo met her at the front entry to the clinic, and took Lauren's hand as soon as she was close enough to touch.

They decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for a late dinner. Lauren pocketed her keys, and tried to contain the enthusiasm that was practically bursting through her skin.

They strolled quietly for a block or so, Lauren trying to slow her pace to Bo's, when suddenly, she couldn't keep quiet anymore. So far, Bo hadn't said a single word about Jack's reaction to being locked up.

"So, what did he say?" Lauren asked.

"More lies," Bo replied. "He's trying to brainwash me, but I won't let him."

"Right." Lauren wanted to be supportive, and knew Bo was having a hard time with the recent developments involving her newly met and suddenly present father, but with the serum running through her veins, it was all she could do to not skip down the street.

"Now," Lauren continued. "I know that him being here changes everything, but can you try to look on the bright side a little bit? Hmm?"

Bo squeezed Lauren's hand gently between the two of them as they walked. "Um, Mark got stabbed, Iris and Cece are dead, and my dad is at your clinic." Her tone turned wry. "Please tell me the bright side because I'm all tapped out for my gratitude journal."

Lauren couldn't take it anymore and let go of Bo's hand to run a few paces ahead of her and wave enthusiastically.

"I can think of three reasons!" She smiled widely as she spoke.

Bo stopped walking and stood on the sidewalk, staring at Lauren.

"One, we're alive!" Lauren shouted, and felt like she might burst from the relief that Bo had survived one more dangerous apocalypse. "Two, we just saved the  _whole world,_  and three-"

She paused and for just a moment, her heart felt absolutely full, and she finally had the freedom to express it. "I love you, Bo Dennis."

Bo's eyes lit up. "I love you, too." She beckoned at Lauren. "Now get off the street. You're making me nervous."

Lauren hadn't even noticed where she was standing, but she really didn't care. She wanted to yell from the rooftops. They had survived - again - and she was so happy to be here  _to share it with this woman._

 _"_ What are we gonna have? Are we gonna do pizza or thai, or, or -" Lauren waved her arms wide. "Or enormous cocktails -"

Her euphoria stopped as quickly as her words when a wall of pain cut off her speech. Lauren felt herself fly through the air and suddenly stop. Her skull screamed in agony, slightly louder than the roar of pain that could not be localized and seemed to come from - from  _everywhere_  in her entire body except her feet and hands. Those extremities seemed to be buzzing with - with something.

She couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't see, could barely breathe through the pain. She couldn't even voice the thoughts in her mind, that it hurt  _so much,_  and she just wanted it to stop. Why did it hurt so much? Would it ever end? She tried to change her internal focus, to get  _inside_ the pain somehow, so she could push it away and figure out what to do, but there was nothing to be done - it hurt too much to think -

There. Her ears heard something nearby - her name? But some instinct realized that this voice, this - thing - could somehow ease her suffering. She tried to move but the agony spiked, yet she knew that getting closer to that voice was the only way to make the pain stop.

Her arm screamed in protest but she forced it to move through the torment, to reach out and pull her salvation closer.

She felt a compulsion to open her mouth, and with a deep breath that pulled from a strange ravenous place deep within, she drew - something - into her body, and let it fill her, fill her every organ and limb, washing away the pain and bringing sweet relief.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren felt fine, but Bo was having none of it.

In retrospect, perhaps an excited pledge of undying love while standing in the middle of the road had not been the best choice.

"Bo." Lauren tried one more time to convince her. "I'm a doctor. I'm telling you, I don't need to go to the hospital. I just want to get cleaned up."

Bo was driving the Camaro like a mad fiend, but spared a worried glance for Lauren before looking back to the streets ahead. "Lauren, you got hit by a  _truck._ Your head was split wide open and you bled a lake."

"And now I'm ok. Could you just take me home?" Lauren could feel the dried blood in her hair and it was making her crazy. Then again,  _everything_ right now made her crazy. The serum and the subsequent succubus healing had her vibrating in her skin. She could barely sit still in her seat.

Bo didn't respond right away, but at least she slowed the velocity of the car.

"Please? Really. I'm fine." Lauren was trying gingerly not to lean too far back onto the vinyl.

Finally, Bo relented. "Ok," she said with a sigh. "But you're staying with me tonight at the clubhouse. At least it's in neutral territory."

Lauren readied another argument against that point - that it no longer mattered that her loft was in Dark territory - but decided to quit while she was ahead. She wanted to go back to Bo's place anyway.

She missed that bed.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It didn't matter how much Lauren wanted to. Bo refused to make love to her and insisted on watching over her while she slept.

"Aren't you supposed to stay awake if you've had a head injury?" Bo had asked.

Lauren had laughed at her - which had been the wrong thing to do, all things considered - and told Bo that she didn't have a concussion, that she was healed, good as new, and fine.  _That healing was different, though. Something about the flow of chi between us._ Lauren knew she needed to give the whole ordeal more thought, but not now.

Now, what she most wanted was Bo's hands on her, but Bo wouldn't touch her with anything more than a supportive caress. Lauren, however, was wired and aroused, and Bo's gentle touches on her back were  _not_  helping Lauren calm down.

And to top it off, Bo was wearing pajamas. To bed.  _Pajamas. When in Gaia's name did she get_ **those**? Bo barely owned  _underwear_ , much less pajamas.

Lauren sighed in utter defeat. "You know, I'm not actually tired."

"Ok." Bo sat up and propped a few pillows against the headboard. "We could talk a bit."

Lauren rolled over onto her back, mild trepidation in her movement. "What do you want to talk about?" She asked, and then abruptly sat half up in bed. "Not my head!"

Bo frowned, but gave in. "We could talk about your work."

Lauren turned to lie on her side, her head propped up on her hand. "We could talk about what happened today."

"We could talk about Evony." Bo countered.

"We could talk about your dad." Lauren offered.

Lauren realized that, based on how she felt and the way Bo's face looked, perhaps all of those options would set off the minefield between them.

She decided to offer an olive branch. "How about I tell you how happy I am to be here with you?" She reached up and took Bo's closest hand in her own and brought it to her lips. "I missed you," she whispered.

Bo's frown faded, and her eyes lit up. "I missed you, too."

"You know," Lauren said quietly, looking down at their entwined fingers for a moment. "Even when we didn't talk, even when you were - " Lauren tried to think of the best way to refer to the time Bo spent looking for the hell shoe and later, when she was in the under-realms. "When you were gone, I was still yours, Bo."

For a moment, it looked like Bo wanted to argue more about that time - the time she'd thought Lauren was lost to the Dark - but then she visibly relented, to Lauren's relief. "I know, Lauren," she said in a small voice. "I used to wonder, but I don't anymore." She squeezed Lauren's fingers in her own. "Whenever I took Kenzi flowers - " Bo paused. Kenzi was another of the sore subjects, now that she was gone. "I could feel you."

"Really?" Lauren was surprised.  _And here I thought I was so stealthy, up on that ridge._

"Yeah," Bo whispered. "It's like I can always sense when you're close to me."

Lauren raised Bo's hand to her lips again. "Well, I'm guessing that right now, you don't have to try too hard." She brushed her lips against Bo's fingertips.

Bo looked like she was about to beg off, and protest that Lauren needed to rest. Lauren cut that argument off at the pass, and slipped Bo's index finger across her own lips, into her mouth, and lightly teased it with a slow and loving tongue, not once breaking eye contact with Bo.

Bo gasped, and her eyes flashed, but then returned to their rich, chocolate brown.

 _Guess you'll have to try harder, Lewis._ Lauren eased one leg across both of Bo's pajama-clad thighs, knowing Bo would feel her heat, and smell her arousal, and - sooner or later - wouldn't be able to refuse Lauren what she wanted. And what she wanted, more than anything - ever - was Bo.

She pulled a second finger into her mouth, and sucked slowly while her hips began a slow grind against Bo's hip. After a moment, she pulled the fingers from her mouth, and drew Bo's hand from her face, down her neck and breastbone and pressed Bo's palm flush against her breast, flattening one tightened nipple.

"So," Lauren whispered as she leaned up, bringing her lips closer to Bo's. "What are you sensing now?"

Lauren smiled in victory as Bo's eyes flashed blue fire and stayed that way. Bo reared up to push Lauren onto her back, and climbed onto her, pressing a thigh to Lauren's center in response.

"I'm sensing there's something you're determined to have, Dr. Lewis." Bo raised herself up just enough to claim both of Lauren's breasts in her hands.

Lauren moaned, then leaned up for a kiss. "Ditch the pajamas."

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Bo's forehead rested against Lauren's. Lauren lay on her back, her head nowhere near the headboard, her feet dangling off the bed. Bo's scent and hot skin pinned her luxuriously to the bed, Bo's movement incessant and fierce above her, grinding herself into Lauren's thigh. Slick with sweat and other delicious things, Lauren pushed back.

Lauren absently noted that they had passed the point where she might usually need a break - water, restroom, short nap. She didn't need a break. She still felt  _wired,_ her fingertips and toes tingling, her muscles barely containing the need to move, to act, to do  _something._

With a burst of strength that Lauren was pretty sure surprised them both, she quickly flipped Bo over onto her back, switching their positions. She raised herself up, and abruptly rolled Bo over onto her belly, reached an arm beneath Bo, and lifted her until Bo was on all fours with Lauren close behind her.

Before Bo could protest or retaliate, Lauren painted Bo's spine with her own tongue, from her coccyx to her trapezius, massaging sculpted muscles everywhere her hands could reach, and moaned while she did it.

For a moment, Bo's body had tightened as if in preparation to flip  _Lauren_  into the same position, but Lauren stopped her.

"Please?" Lauren asked, and then nipped Bo's back with tiny bites between her shoulder blades.

"Please what?" Bo gasped.

Lauren pressed herself against Bo's back - knowing Bo was strong enough to hold them both up - and nuzzled into Bo's hair, just beside her ear.

"Please let me have you," she whispered, as she reached her hand down to stroke Bo brazenly from behind.

She took Bo's silence for compliance, slid herself back to rest on her own heels, and with no other preamble than that, promptly pushed three fingers inside her lover.

Bo screamed, and then pushed her hips back for more.

Lauren growled, and though she was distantly surprised that she did so, it did nothing to change her resolve.

She tilted her head to one side and rested her cheek on Bo's lower back, relentless as she thrust repeatedly, moaning at the almost feral intensity of her pace. To be here, with Bo, to be hers again - she had never let herself hope that they would reunite. But now…now, she was overcome, overwhelmed, overjoyed.

She pumped her arm vigorously, surprised to feel a new strength there. Normally, by this point, she'd be exhausted and trying desperately to keep up, but she was immensely pleased to discover that she had quite a bit of energy in reserve.

And then she had a thought she'd never had before.

_I will fuck you until you scream, Bo Dennis._

And she did.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Later, Lauren found herself glad the house was empty of anyone but the two of them as she screamed her own release. Not that she cared. Hell, right now she didn't care if they heard her in  _space_. Her orgasm lasted for what seemed like forever until she finally relaxed and fell back to the bed, a warm lethargy settling into her limbs.

She realized she was digging her nails into Bo's shoulder and promptly removed them with a small apology as she felt Bo move her body up from between Lauren's legs. Lauren moaned long and low as she stretched out the muscles along her spine.

She opened her eyes with a smile to look at Bo's beautiful face, but was surprised to see a frown.

"What is it?"

"That was," Bo searched for a word. "Different." She looked at Lauren as if she were searching for clues to solve a mystery.

Lauren was crushed - Bo hadn't enjoyed it as much as she had? "Different bad?" Lauren said in a small voice. She had felt so - so free, so _emancipated_ in her loving, it hurt to think Bo had felt otherwise.

"No, no." Bo was quick to reassure her, but her voice was hesitant as she moved to lie beside Lauren. "Not bad. You always feel wonderful to me. You should know that by now. Just," she paused again. "It was just different."

Lauren didn't think that sounded any better.  _Talk about damned with faint praise._ She started to pull away from Bo, but Bo held tight.

"Hey, don't go," Bo said. "I loved it - I love  _you._ " She wrapped her arms around Lauren's shoulders and pulled her close. "I'm just worried about you," she whispered, and then kissed the crown of Lauren's head.

Lauren rolled her eyes, nearly exasperated with this point. "Bo, I'm  _fine._ Really. _"_ Her tone was a little terser than intended.

"Ok, lover," Bo said after moment. "I believe you." She conceded with a small smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

But Lauren didn't think Bo was convinced.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_While I've attempted, for the most part, to keep a certain amount of emotional distance when recording my work and experiences here in these journals, today I'm finding that difficult._

_The formula has worked in ways that are beyond my wildest hypotheses. While I am still human, I have been transformed and am now capable of acting as a conduit, though only when I'm physically touching a Fae subject._

_My ability has been tested with a Mesmer, a Sandman in the clinic for a regular checkup, and a telepath on my staff. And this explains my healing with Bo after the accident the other night. I was evidently channeling her succubus abilities. In each case, while touching the Fae in question, I was able to successfully demonstrate their ability, their power, and weakened all but Bo in the process._

_I've yet to tell her, though I plan to this evening. Jack has just finished a preliminary physical examination and with the exception of an elevated heart rate and slightly higher than normal blood pressure, I show no side effects._

_He was the only viable choice for such an examination. There are no other physicians here now that Sam is gone, and while I'm not certain of Jack's experience, he has certainly shown immeasurable skill._

_Of course Jack is dangerous, and perhaps Bo is right not to trust him, but I firmly believe that while ALL Fae are dangerous, not all of them are evil. Some of them - every one of my staff here at the clinic, for example - want to do good things in the world._

_Now, I will be one those people. Not Fae, but as a human conduit, I will be able to help more people, to heal them, and I'll be here to do it for a long, long time. I will no longer be the weak human cowering on the sidelines. I will be able to stand beside Bo, to face whatever comes._

_As for Jack…it's entirely possible that Jack is doing whatever he can to contribute, and that he truly means no ill will toward any of us._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren walked into Bo's living room from the stairway. Bo had said she needed a few minutes to talk to Kenzi, so she'd been upstairs in Bo's room, reviewing email on her phone, until she felt the telltale rattle of the house's frame that signified the closing of the front door.

"Is Kenzi coming back tonight?" Lauren asked, looking at Bo in question. Bo sat behind the makeshift desk next to the makeshift kitchen in this makeshift house.  _Really, why do you continue to live here?_

"No," Bo said sadly. "She's got a room at the swankiest hotel downtown. No need for her to crash at the crackhouse." She'd yet to raise her head to meet Lauren's eyes. "I asked her to leave town again until everything is settled with Jack, so she'll probably fly out tomorrow."

That briefly gave Lauren pause. She knew how much Kenzi's presence meant to Bo, and for Bo to send Kenzi away meant that she really thought of Jack as a significant threat.

While Lauren didn't have the same reservations, she'd try to keep her distance from Bo's father.

For now, though, she wanted to change the tone of their evening, and cheer Bo up a bit.

"Wine?" Lauren asked.

"Please." Bo hadn't moved from her chair, sitting at the desk. Lauren fetched the glasses and a bottle of wine, then busied herself with removing the corkscrew but watched Bo. Her lover dejectedly sat forward, and rested her chin on clasped hands, elbows on the desk. The warm glow of the room's string lights was kind to her face, but then again, Bo always looked good.

She didn't, though, always look so sad.

Lauren picked up the half-full wine glasses and walked over to Bo.

"Hey," Lauren said softly, offering Bo one glass. "I'm sure we'll get this all figured out soon and maybe Kenzi can come right back."

Bo took a quiet sip, but didn't raise her eyes. "Yeah."

Lauren tried again. "And now, you won't have to worry about Ze." They'd successfully managed - with Lauren's new conduit abilities - to send one of the Ancients back to wherever she'd come from.

Bo nodded, but didn't say anything else. Was there something else that Lauren didn't know about that could be bothering Bo? She thought back to an earlier conversation they'd had where Lauren had demonstrated what she could do while in contact with some Fae. At the time, Bo had seemed less than thrilled.

"Is it me?" Lauren said in a small voice.

"No!" Bo was quick to respond, and finally looked up at Lauren. "I'm just -" She looked embarrassed. As if whatever she was keeping to herself was something she didn't want to bring up, but didn't really have a choice.

Suddenly, Lauren understood perfectly.

"You're hungry," Lauren said quietly.

Bo looked down, embarrassed. "It's been a few days since…" Since the last time they'd been together, and Bo wasn't satisfied for long by sex alone. And now they both knew that Lauren had actually fed from Bo in order to heal herself, which meant Bo was depleted beyond what they might have believed.

This was the one thing that they hadn't talked about at all since their reconciliation.

Lauren thought quickly. She absolutely did  _not_  want Bo to feed from anyone else, but she knew that Bo couldn't be satisfied with Lauren as her sole source of nourishment. They'd certainly had a number of discussions about that during their previous attempt at a relationship.

 _Discussions, right. More like arguments._ Lauren remembered the pain of not being enough for Bo.  _But that was then. Maybe now…_

 _"_ Bo," she began. "Maybe we should try something…different."

Bo looked wary.

Lauren moved closer, set her glass on the desk and encouraged Bo to do the same, then reached out to take Bo gently by the hand and pulled her from the chair. "Come sit with me for a minute."

She led Bo over to the couch, gently pushed her down, and then, with a warm smile, Lauren straddled Bo, and lightly twined her arms around Bo's head and shoulders.

"Listen," Lauren began. "I know this was a hard thing for us to talk about before. I don't want it to be that way this time." She softly kissed Bo, lingering to prove her point. "I also know you're a little leery of -"  _how do I talk about this without making it worse?_

Bo still looked unhappy and uncomfortable, and Lauren was afraid that if she didn't handle this the right way, it would always be between them and they would never get past it.

 _"_ Just trust me, Bo. Please?" She kissed Bo again, taking her time, trying to convey with her kiss alone how much she loved her. "Just a taste. Try. For me?"

Lauren allowed her desire to build, to change the tempo of the kiss from mild encouragement to barely concealed passion. Soon, her hips moved on Bo's lap, her lips parted to let the tip of her tongue trace Bo's lips, and she felt Bo's arms wrap around her back, her hands kneading the muscles along Lauren's spine.

Lauren had stopped thinking, stopped trying to convince Bo to let herself go, and simply enjoyed herself. The warm give and take that pushed the outside world far from them. Everything always felt better in Bo's arms.

Then, she felt the telltale shift of energy that meant Bo was drawing chi. Within moments, Lauren's arousal flared, buttons were popped open, zippers were parted, clothes came untucked, hands moved more erratically, and someone - Lauren wasn't sure which of them it was - moaned.

But as Bo fed, Lauren noticed that she herself didn't feel depleted at all. Was it possible that her new conduit abilities meant that she could satisfy Bo all by herself?

Right at that moment, Bo stopped pulling chi, and drew back. Her eyes, still bright blue, met Lauren's - not fearful, but definitely cautious. "I should stop."

Lauren hadn't stopped the slow movement of her hips. "You sure?" She smiled again as she brushed her fingertips over Bo's nipples, Bo's bra and blouse lifted firmly out of the way. "You don't need more?"

"I'm good, Lauren," Bo raised a hand in warning. "Let's just stop, ok?"

For once, though, Lauren wasn't ready to be done.

"Well, if you don't want to keep going," she whispered with a sly smile. "I'll just have to go on without you."

Lauren reached with one hand to cup Bo's face and she kissed her, then slowly pulled her fingers along the curve of Bo's jaw, down her neck, between her breasts and down her abdomen, but then instead of touching between Bo's thighs, she boldly reached between her own.

Lauren gasped as she stroked herself, and pulled her head back from Bo's kiss just enough for Bo to see the look on her face. Bo watched her, mouth slightly open in surprise, as Lauren moved her fingers faster.

Bo's eyes rapidly tracked back and forth between Lauren's face and her hand, until she couldn't keep quiet anymore.

"That is fucking hot," she finally said. "You're delicious."

Lauren smiled again, her breath quickening. "How would you know?" A quiet moan crossed her lips, and she stilled her hips. "You've only tasted one part of me."

She drew her fingers up from between her thighs and pressed them against Bo's lips. "That's just bad science." She smiled provocatively as she felt Bo suck Lauren's fingers into her mouth and moan.

Bo's eyes went from cerulean to nearly ice. In seconds, she lifted Lauren from her lap and turned to lay Lauren flat on the couch. Pants, underwear - everything - were nearly ripped from Lauren's body before Bo lifted one leg over her shoulders and lowered her head to Lauren's core.

"Feeling better?" Lauren gasped.

Bo let out a low chuckle then gently bit one inner thigh. "I feel fan-fucking-tastic." A firm stroke of Bo's tongue against Lauren's clitoris made Lauren cry out. "I'd say your 'something different' was a success, Doctor."

Lauren was speechless and elated, thoughts racing furiously as Bo's passion swept them both away. This changed  **everything.**

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren guided the Audi through the rainy streets of the city. Though it was only early afternoon, the skies were dark and ominous, perhaps aware of the gravity of Lauren's chosen destination.

When she had awakened that morning in Bo's bed, she'd felt so weak it had taken three tries to get out of bed. She didn't want to alarm Bo - Bo was looking for any excuse to argue about the serum and would use Lauren's condition as reason to never again attempt what they'd so successfully accomplished the night before. Lauren had quickly escaped Bo's scrutiny and gone immediately to the clinic.

Preliminary test results from a singular blood sample had revealed that the bonding of Fae elements to her own base was deteriorating. Lauren spent the next few hours concentrating a second dose - which she administered upon completion - in the hopes that the effects would last longer.

Now that she knew that it was possible that she would both live longer and be Bo's solitary source of chi, she had no intention of letting that slip away from her. She had come too far to turn back now.

Lauren was surprised, though, that the serum's effects had degenerated so quickly. She briefly considered asking Jack about it, but didn't want to involve him any further into the process. Lauren herself was certain he could help, but she knew Bo would be angry, and she didn't want to bring something more between them at this point.

Their new relationship wasn't exactly on solid ground yet.

Her own research had hit a brick wall. She had no one else she could turn to for help. That left one course of action - painful though it was, but Lauren didn't feel as if she had any alternative.

As she drove into the dark parking garage under the Dark tower, Lauren idly wondered if this is how things had started for Isaac Taft, but then severed that thread of thought before it could go any further. He had been psychologically damaged, and her path had nothing to do with his.

Lauren parked her car in a reserved space that still had her name on it - she tried not to think about what that meant - and headed for the elevators that would lead to the archives. As she walked, she steeled herself for what she was about to do.

She had found one the Dark journals of human experiments on an earlier visit, and had promised herself she would never cross that line. Lauren knew that the Dark archives held journals of studies so foul and inhumane, they violated every tenet she held dear.

Yet she also knew that there were stories of potions and elixirs much like the legend of the fountain of youth, and that some of that potential good would be mixed in with the bad.

_What I find may horrify me, but if it gives me a clue to the answers I seek, then I must read them._

The elevator bell rang, and she stepped inside and selected the button for the floor where deep archives resided.

_I'll do whatever it takes if it means I can be with Bo forever and finally be all that she needs._

A few hours later, Lauren felt as if she were taking a macabre tour of every genocide in human history. The horrors she read made indelible marks on her, and soon the soft smooth leather from the covers of each journal felt caked in grime. She knew it was entirely psychological, but that didn't make the feeling of uncleanliness go away.

Yet Lauren truly believed this was the only way to get what she needed.

_She has other lovers who can feed her, fill her, give her what she needs, and I can't. That will never change…unless I make my own fate and find a way to be more than I am._

More than once, she'd been reminded of that argument she had with Isaac Taft about the responsibility of information - about how scientists needed to be careful of how they obtained information and how they used it.

_I want so much to hold on to her - I am solely hers, and want her to be mine, but without the serum, this is impossible. As a simple human, I am incapable of being what she needs - emotionally, yes, but physically? No. I cannot argue against science and plain biological fact that, as a human, I cannot keep her alive._

More than once, Lauren wondered if the ends truly justified the means, but then she'd remind herself that everything - everything worth having - came at a cost, and perhaps, to get what she wanted - to  _be_  what she wanted to be - this was the price she'd have to pay.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren sat up quickly in bed, biting back a scream so forcefully, she could taste blood on her tongue. Her breath came in dry sobs, and she shivered against the cool air that froze the sweat on her skin. She didn't know where she was at first -

_How the hell did I get here? Wasn't I at Bo's last night?_

\- and tried to piece together her memories of the night before, but she couldn't remember anything. She reached up, and massaged her aching temples, but nothing came to mind. Nothing but the nightmare.

This one was, by far, the worst, and compared to some of her nightmares after her first tour in Afghanistan, that was saying something. She'd been in Taft's lab again, but this time, she'd been in charge. This time, in addition to Aiofe and Dyson in their solitary glass cells, Hale, Kenzi, Vex and Nadia had been there as well. Bruised, bleeding and broken, her friends had either screamed at her in hateful anger or cowered from her in fear. But that wasn't the worst part.

No, the worst part was that Bo had been there, too, but she hadn't been in a cell. Bo had been restrained to a metal examination table, screaming out her suffering as her bone marrow had been removed, her soft, warm skin flayed from her flesh, her precious organs sampled without anesthesia. Lastly, by Lauren's own hand, a needle had extended towards Bo's perfect, blue eyes -

"Stop!" Lauren screamed, even thought there was no one to hear. The images kept replaying in her mind, though she rubbed at her eyes to get them to stop. The tears came, the sobs shook her solid, muscular frame, and she wailed softly in the darkness.

She had to stop reading those journals in the Dark archives. The knowledge came at significant cost, and she felt weak, knowing that she couldn't bear to read another page of the horrible experiments that had been performed on humans and Fae alike.

She was losing her sanity and it was too high a price for what she needed to do. And if she couldn't bear to do the research on her own, that left the least palatable alternative, but she no longer felt like she had any choice.

She'd have to ask Jack for his help.

 

**Chapter 8**

Lauren closed her eyes for a moment, squeezing them tightly, and mentally counted to ten.  _Ok, you're not asleep. You're not hallucinating._ She slowly opened her eyes, and looked again. What she'd seen hadn't changed, so it must be real.

Jack's cell at the clinic was empty.

 _Shit, this is really happening._ Lauren was trying not to panic, but her thoughts were disjointed, wild.  _Bo. I need to warn Bo._ If Bo's father had escaped, they were all in danger, but Bo most of all.

She reached for her cell phone, but it wasn't in her pocket, and that meant she must have left it at the loft. Lauren looked wildly around the room, and spotted a phone sitting on one of the lab counters. She hurried over and promptly lifted the handset, then realized that she couldn't recall Bo's cell number.

Irritated that she didn't have it memorized, she replaced the handset with a slam.

 _Maybe I wrote it down?_ Lauren left the dark, empty room and headed for her office.

The clinic was mostly dark. When there wasn't a crisis in effect, Lauren insisted that the staff keep standard business hours. They were a hard working crew, and Lauren appreciated their efforts, persistence and loyalty in the face of all the recent challenges. At this hour, even the cleaning crew was done for the night.

Just as she reached the door to her office, she thought she heard something. She froze, eyes quickly darting from shadow to shadow, ears intently listening for it again. Was it a shuffle of a foot, a brush of fabric? What had -

"Perceptive, for a human." A dry, malevolent voice filled the quiet of the hall. She didn't recognize it, and couldn't pinpoint its location either.

Lauren's instincts told her not to stick around to find out for certain. She was alone and unarmed - she didn't even have the morphine-loaded injector she usually carried in one sleeve - and whoever this was, they clearly had an intention to do her harm.

She sprinted for the nearest exit, and cleared the door before she heard another word.

The heavy door slammed behind her, but she kept running. The parking lot was on the other side of the building, so she headed for the fastest path to her car.

Lauren rounded the corner of the dark alley, and quickly pressed her back against the rain-slick brick wall. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, hoping it would quiet her explosive panting. She hadn't sprinted like that since - well, probably since never, but certainly not since she'd been back in country.

It was a foolish effort. Trying to contain her breathing was a useless endeavor when any Fae worth its salt would hear her heartbeat or smell her scent. She was so scared, though, she couldn't help it. It was after dark, long past midnight, and no one knew where she was.

And she was fairly certain that someone was trying to kill her.

"Bit of a pickle, eh, doc?" Vex said cheerfully, strolling into the light of a nearby street lamp.

Lauren nearly screamed with surprise.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lauren whispered fiercely.

"Watching your back, not that you've noticed," he said at normal volume.

Lauren rolled her eyes in exasperation.  _Does he always speak in riddles? "_ What are you talking about?" And then a frightening thought occurred to her. "Are you behind this, Vex?"  _Christ, if he wants me dead, I don't stand a chance._

Vex's smiling face turned to an angry frown in an instant. "If I wanted you dead, it'd have been done long ago, Doc."

Lauren was shocked.  _Did I say that at loud? Wait, no._ The fear was getting to her. She couldn't think clearly.  _Wait, no._ She quickly leaned over to peek around the corner of the building but no one - at least nothing she could see - was in pursuit.

She glanced back at Vex and noticed a strange look on his face. He looked as if…as if his feelings were hurt. It gave her pause, and she relaxed a bit when she realized that he really was here to help.

Lauren swallowed. "I'm sorry, Vex."

It was Vex's turn to look surprised, though he covered it up quickly. "What in the sweet hell are you doing here this late?"

She didn't have an answer. "Um," Lauren stalled. What  _was_ she doing here at this hour? Why had she come here? "Research." It was as good an answer as any since evidently adrenaline had knocked her clean into shock.

He rolled his eyes and walked closer to her. "Oh, I'm not falling for that bullshit again." He took a protective stance next to her, and pulled her gently by the elbow from where she was leaning against the wall. "Let's get out of here, then."

Vex walked her to her car, and though he strolled in an almost leisurely fashion, his eyes clearly swept before and behind them at regular intervals. "You should think about getting yourself a little security, Doc."

Lauren scoffed, completely disregarding the current very serious situation. "I don't need security, Vex." She readied her keys as they approached the Audi. "I don't think my patients would feel very welcome if I had someone like Bruce or Dave - or gods,  _Steve_ hulking around."

Vex chuckled to himself. "Oh, my pet, that's  _exactly_  who you need around here, with all your serums and superpowers."

Lauren opened the door to the car, and had the good grace to offer thanks. "Um, thanks for…" She met his gaze uncomfortably, but after a tense moment of brutal unspoken honesty between them, Vex shrugged it off.

"Just strolling nearby, minding my own business, Doc," Vex said lightly, and turned around to go on his way. "I'd tell you to stay out of trouble, but it'll come find you, now, won't it?" He waved with a flourish, and returned to the shadows.

Lauren stood for a moment, watching him walk away, wondering why on earth he'd been near her clinic. Was he looking for something? Or someone? Did Evony send him here?

Then she remembered that someone had been after her just minutes before, and she quicklyclimbed into the Audi, locked the door out of habit and started the engine. For a moment, she froze, trying to recall where she was going next.

Ah - something was wrong with the serum, so something must be wrong with the formula.  _So tired_. The adrenaline rush from her near miss had abruptly faded, and she probably needed to go home and get some sleep -  _how long have I been up, anyway -_ but she wanted answers more than she wanted rest.

Maybe there was something in the archives that she'd missed.

She shifted the car into reverse, and backed out of her reserved space, then shifted again to move forward and leave the lot. A car she didn't recognize was parked near the exit, and she thought that odd, since the clinic was closed at the moment, but decided to push that mystery aside for another day.

Lauren reached for her phone, but it wasn't in its usual compartment in the console.  _Must have left it at the loft._ The dark city streets were empty at this hour - Lauren's car and some headlights belonging to a car far behind her were the only ones on the road.  _Well, it's too late to call Bo anyway._

There was something she urgently needed to tell Bo, but Lauren couldn't remember what it was.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren held her badge against the card reader at the garage entrance to the Dark tower's lower level, and pulled the door open once the indicator light turned green. She walked directly to the elevator, and once the car arrived, promptly pushed the button for the third floor.

A few minutes later, she was halfway down the hall, headed for her office, when she remembered she actually wanted to go to the lower levels. Shaking her head, she decided to make sure there was nothing there that needed her immediate attention.

She walked into the office with her name on the door, and noticed the bookshelf behind her desk was empty of several scientific journals she referenced often.  _Maybe Sam borrowed them._

Lauren walked over to the laboratory door, and opened it, expecting to see someone there, but then remembered that it was late, and that Sam didn't work here anymore.  _Right. Well, down to the archives, then._

The white walls of the upper floors gave way to the darker tones of the archives, and then she headed down the back stairs to the stone-walled sub-levels instead of taking the elevator. Soon, she found herself in the darkly familiar deep archives, with the larger, older tomes. Some of these books were older than the country she stood in, but she wasn't impressed with the history today.

Once, while looking for the cure for an ailment suffered by one of the Dark elders, she'd found a journal entry that cited the despicable work of a twisted man who had spent decades looking for the key to eternal life. Right now, she was looking for his private chronicle.

It took her nearly forty minutes to discover that the book she sought was missing from its permanent location on the shelves, but she was persistent and there was no possibility of her giving up, so she thought long and hard about where it might be.

And though the truth was like a bitter pill she didn't want to swallow, one unwelcome memory swam up from the depths of her mind. A moment when she'd stood in a doorway, mentally cataloging the books she saw inside a room.

The missing journal was in Massimo's lair. The answer she sought was in the one place she absolutely did not want to look.

With leaden feet, Lauren walked slowly to the door of Massimo's chosen den, and stood staring into the large room with desperate, fearful eyes.

In this room, she had been terrorized by a madman. In this room, she had been told repeatedly how weak humans were, how doomed their lives when they spent them with the Fae, how little her own life had meant in Massimo's grand scheme of Fae domination.

In this room, she had seen in ever so painful detail, exactly what could become of a human who took things too far.

Lauren didn't want to think about why Massimo had chosen that book. The fact that she wanted something he'd found valuable suggested things about her that she didn't want to consider at all. She summoned the courage to step inside.

 _I am_ **_nothing_ ** **** _like that insane bastard._

As Lauren crossed the threshold, her awareness intensified of every piece of information her senses brought to her attention. She noted the worn pattern in the dust on the floor, and stepped only in the barest of spaces. Lauren touched nothing as she passed through the room.

Finally, Lauren stood before a waist-high table that was as wide as her extended arms would be - a workbench with a small selection of books against the wall. Directly in front of the small bookshelf was a collection of miscellaneous materials set in a curious pattern, surrounded by small rocks and crystals.

She looked closely. There was a mortar and pestle, a few small, brown glass containers, small ceramic bowls full of unrecognizable powders, the bones of a small animal and a clear, sealed vial of something that looked like wine but Lauren was certain it was blood.

It tickled something in her memory. Massimo had been working on something, but hadn't finished it before his death at the end of Kenzi's sword in Bo's hands. Lauren shook that memory out of her head, staring at the pattern of the items on the bench.

Enlightenment struck her.  _It's a Kraveni ward._

The ward was designed to protect anything within a marked space. She couldn't remember the consequences of breaking the ward, but she did recall that it was particularly severe. A quick look at the wooden beams of the ceiling revealed several stones and crystals somehow adhered to their surface, directly above the table.

Lauren thought quickly and leaned slightly to the side, changing her perspective to get an idea of exactly what space was protected. She quickly surmised that she could remove the book without crossing the ward, but it would require a bit of contortion on her part. That book didn't look light.

After checking the placement of her feet, she used the table itself for leverage - careful to keep one hand far from the ward - and stretched her other arm around the ward to reach the book she wanted. She gingerly pulled the large book from the shelf, tilted it to one side so that it didn't break the plane of the ward, and once she had a stable grip on it, pulled it around the ward and across the work bench, and finally tucked it securely under one arm.

Lauren looked around once more for any other traps, then carefully retraced her steps, and wasted no time leaving the vile room.

With more purpose to her stride, she walked back to the main room in the deep archives, and set the book carefully on the large wooden table set in the center of the room for just this purpose. The book was huge, almost an arms-length wide when opened, and she stood against the table's edge, leaning over the book to read its dated entries.

The journal was written by a human, an 18th-century Russian mystic named Vechnost who had performed various experiments on young human and Fae women. He believed the key to everlasting life lay inside them, and used extreme methods to extract that knowledge and extend his own life. There was no proof that he'd discovered true eternal life, but he'd clearly found some success. Legend said that he had lived to be 136 - and never looked a day over 40 - before he was murdered by a small band of Fae related to one of his victims.

His journal, however, contained his copious detailed notes, where Lauren was hoping to find clues that would help her build a hypothesis of how to stabilize her own formula. She had no intention of ever using live subjects for her research, but she needed answers, and this psychopath had somehow been successful. If one could make success of mass murder.

The experiments were despicable. The images were horrible. The fact that the knowledge had been archived at all was a crime against humans and Fae.

Lauren read every page.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Bo was staring at her again.

Lauren finished chewing her current bite of pad Thai, decided she was full, and reached for a nearby napkin. After wiping her mouth, Lauren smiled wryly at her lover, and then turned her body sideways to face Bo on the other end of the couch. "What?"

"Sorry," Bo said. "I've just -" She paused and Lauren felt like Bo was tiptoeing around her. "I was going to say that I've never seen a grown woman eat so much, but Kenzi probably still has the lead."

Lauren laughed easily. "Kenzi wouldn't have leftovers. There's enough here for at least two more meals." A dozen containers peppered the small coffee table in front of them, though only about half of them still contained any food.

Bo smiled again, but still looked nervous, and it was starting to piss Lauren off.

"Look, Bo," she said. "I am fine. Will you  _please_  stop worrying about me?"

Bo spread her hands out helplessly, palms up. "I can't help it, Lauren. I love you."

"Well, try." Lauren stood up and started grabbing containers to carry to the kitchen. "You're treating me like I'm made of a glass, and I'm not."

"Lauren -" Bo stood from the couch and walked around it, heading for the kitchen.

"No, Bo," Lauren continued cleaning up, now moving at an angry, almost feverish pace. "You don't trust me to make my own decisions about this, even though I know more about it than you do." She tossed an empty beer bottle into the garbage can, and it collided with something and broke loudly.

The sound took all the fight out of her for a moment.

"Maybe I'll just head over to my place," Lauren said apologetically. "Some test results on the serum are most done and I want to check the effects of -"

"I don't need you to be Fae for me, Lauren!" Bo interrupted angrily. "I just need you to be with me."

"Bo, I'm not Fae, I'm just a conduit." Lauren felt like she'd explained this a hundred times.

"But what does that even  _mean?"_

Lauren did not want to walk through that discussion again.  _"_ Does it really matter? I mean with all the ramifications of what happened with the Morrigan and Trick's official inauguration as the Ash -"

"Damnit, Lauren!" Bo had reached the point of complete exasperation, and for the first time - ever - Lauren watched her eyes flash during an argument. "I don't care about any of this other Fae -  _bullshit!"_ She actually sputtered in frustration. "I love  _you._  I want  _you._ I don't care about my father's plans, or the future of the gods damned colony, or my fate as whatever Dark Queen someone else wants me to be!" She took a step closer, and as angry as she was, it would have been menacing if Lauren didn't know her better.

"I want," Bo stated emphatically, "to spend my days - and my nights - with you. Just Bo. Just Lauren. Why can't we do that?"

"For how long, Bo?" Lauren would not sacrifice that one point. She had a limited future without the serum, and Lauren felt aware of every single moment that passed.

"Can't we just take things one day at a time?"

"While I wait for the other foot to drop?"

Bo stopped moving towards her, and, to Lauren, it looked like some of the fight had gone out of her. "Please, can we just stop? Just for a minute?"

Lauren looked uncomfortably at the floor.

Bo didn't say anything for a few moments, until Lauren looked up at her.

"Is this another one of those plans where you don't talk to me about it?" Bo said flatly, and Lauren knew that, while Bo was referring to her new abilities, she was also talking about when Lauren went to the Dark after Taft.

"Bo, I did what I thought was best at the time. I was trying to help, to protect you -"

"I don't need protection, Lauren, not from you."

Lauren's mouth fell open. That one stung.

"Lauren," Bo continued, almost apologetically. "You don't have to do this. We can work together to fix this, or you'll figure something else out. You are so smart," she reached over to take one of Lauren's hands in hers. "You and your brain have saved us so many times. The Djieiene. The Garuda."

Lauren wasn't convinced. "Well, it didn't save Lisa. Or -" Lauren's voice fell to a whisper as her eyes filled with tears. "Or Sam."

All the anger seemed to fade from Bo's body, and she took Lauren in her arms. "Baby, I'm so, so sorry about Sam."

Lauren blinked the tears away, and pulled back just enough to see Bo's eyes. "I don't want to be fixed. I want this, Bo. I can do so much more like this." She rested her forehead against Bo's. "I am stronger, I am faster, I'm no longer the weak link in the group - the human cowering against the wall."

She raised head to kiss Bo softly. "Most importantly, I will be with you far longer than a normal human lifespan would give us."

Lauren kissed Bo again, but though Bo kissed back, Lauren still sensed her hesitancy. She kissed Bo's lips, her cheek, the curve where Bo's jaw met her neck.

"Don't you want to be with me, lover?" Lauren whispered, softly in Bo's ear. She kissed Bo lightly, just below her ear, then softly licked the lobe so close to her lips. "Because I want to be with you. Always."

She reached behind Bo's neck, combing her fingers into the thick hair at her Bo's nape.

"I love you, Bo. I love and want only you."

So far, Lauren had only tasted chi, but there were other succubus traits that she wanted to try. She thought for a moment how it might work, and was rewarded with a tingling in her fingers.

Lauren quirked a grin and pulled back far enough to raise both hands to the soft fabric across Bo's breasts, then abruptly ripped the fabric apart, sending a button flying. Before Bo could say a word in protest, Lauren ghosted the backs of her fingers across Bo's skin, and pulsed her.

Bo's eyes flared to crystal blue almost instantly, and her mouth fell open with a gasp.

"How about now?" Lauren smiled, and then dropped both hands to Bo's breasts, and pulsed both nipples at the same time. It left Lauren light-headed, almost as if she were high on some narcotic, but then Bo's hands seized Lauren just above her hips, and lifted Lauren up to press her back against the kitchen column. Lauren wrapped her legs around Bo's waist.

Lauren took Bo's hair in her hands, forming them to Bo's head as she kissed her deeply, wantonly, already moving her hips with a clear goal in mind.

"Lauren…"

Lauren closed her eyes, and rested her forehead against Bo's. "Here, lover. I will always be here."

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren held Bo down, and rode Bo's thigh with all her strength, and for first time ever, Bo couldn't easily push her off. Lauren grinned in temporary victory while Bo's eyes flashed, and she eased her grip and shifted to one side on Bo's bed and changed the tone of their lovemaking.

Lauren wanted Bo to love this as much as she did.

One hand pulled Bo's fingers to her face, and she took two of those fingers into her mouth and against her tongue. She sucked slowly and leisurely at the same measured pace as her other hand moved between Bo's thighs and stroked, and watched Bo's eyes roll back into her head, and close.

Lauren had never really been one for bed sports - that kind of sex that was less about lovemaking and more about the physicality of the act itself. She wasn't one to excessively dominate a lover in bed, or to take only what she wanted above all else.

But on this night, with this woman, whose strength and endurance in this arena she knew only by reputation, Lauren was going to go as far as she possibly could, and give everything she had, with only one goal in mind.

She would fully satisfy her lover. And she understood perfectly well what a tall order that might be.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Hours later, Lauren wrapped her hands around the curves that melded Bo's waist with her hips, and kissed Bo low on her belly before sliding herself lower on the bed. She was beyond intelligible thought, her senses were so overstimulated that her fingers trembled.

The many scents of Bo - the delicate almost floral fragrance of the skin at the joining of shoulder and neck, the spicy valley between breasts that could only be described as glorious, the earthy redolence that was her inner thigh - were so intoxicating that Lauren could not help but breathe deeply.

Bo's skin was soft over muscles so dense, the primal strength of them made something low in Lauren's belly nearly pulse with want.

Lauren's eyes - when she could keep them open - feasted on the mouthwatering sight of Bo in heat - arms held overhead to keep herself from pulsing Lauren in response to the ecstasy she clearly felt, blue irises blazing brightly, nipples tight, skin flushed, legs splayed wide and unashamed. There wasn't a single blemish on Bo's body, not one scar. She was quite literally perfect.

Lauren's ears were graced with the moans and cries that Bo could not contain, and it was a pure and almost divine music.

And the taste -  _gods._

Bo grew suddenly sweeter just before orgasm, and Lauren was  _drunk_ on the taste of her lover. Though her own muscles ached to the point of failure, she could not - and would not - stop.

Lauren closed her eyes reverently, as if in prayer.

Just this once, she wouldn't stop until Bo begged her.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It felt like the last mile of a twenty-mile run. Lauren was panting, her heart raced, and she desperately needed water. She had nothing left but there was no way she was quitting now.

She'd lost count of the number of times Bo had climaxed - against Lauren's tongue, around her fingers - but she was determined that - tonight - she would not be the limiting factor in their union. Her humanity would not stop them.

Lauren felt the tension in Bo's body that signaled she was close to orgasm. She rested her forehead against Bo's belly, curled the fingers inside Bo to stroke that one place inside her that would -

"Gods, Lauren!" Bo cried out, and then her entire body shook as she moaned long and low - unintelligible words reaching Lauren's ears as she kept up the pressure and refused to cease her motion.

Lauren tilted her face to the side, and saw Bo's body bowed up from the bed, her hands clenched tight in the sheets under her, mouth open and panting, eyes closed. Slowly, the tension eased, and Bo fell back to the bed, licking her lips in satisfaction.

Lauren eased her fingers from their home, rested them slickly against Bo's thigh while they both caught their breath. She raised her heavy head to look upon Bo's face. "How do you feel? Do you need more?" Lauren asked, though her voice sounded scratchy from her parched throat.

"No," Bo said, her eyes still closed, but her voice filled with wonder. "I'm…I'm full."

Lauren's heart soared as she rested her head wearily against Bo's thighs, and felt Bo's fingers comb lazily through her hair.

She'd been enough.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Some time later, a blinding spike of pain through her skull woke Lauren up and she rolled herself slowly upright. When the pain eased, she noticed dim light from a dozen or so candles around the large room. Another dozen had burned down to sprawling pools of cooled wax. But this was not her bedroom at the Light compound.

_Where am I?_

As she wondered, she sensed the warmth of skin against her hip, and looked down to see the wickedly attractive lower back of a perfect female body. Her eyes trailed up the spine until she saw dark hair splayed across a wrinkled, bunched up pillow.

_Bo._

Another spike through her skull made her draw a sharp, hissing breath, and in the next moment, her belly screamed in hunger.

She tumbled out of bed and stumbled her way across the room, navigating a dark hall and stairway more by instinct than memory until she found herself in a rudimentary kitchen. Naked, she stood before the large glass door of a refrigerated cooler.

She threw the door open, grabbed the first thing that looked edible, and devoured it. Then she grabbed a plastic bottle full of liquid and drained it. A takeout box of leftovers sat on a lower shelf, and she opened it, eating its contents with her fingers, not caring what it was or even tasting it.

After her needs had been sated, she exhaled, her head clearer than it had been when she'd come downstairs. Her head hurt less, though it still pounded, and her guts were no longer tight with hunger.

She looked down at her naked chest and then her feet, and saw the remains of her makeshift meal.

_Jesus, Beattie, get it together._

A moment later, she realized her mistake.  _It's Lewis. Lauren Lewis. You're going to have to get used to it. That's your name, now._

She cleaned herself up, as well as the mess on the floor, drank two glasses of water, and then walked shakily back upstairs.

Lauren crawled into Bo's bed, wrapped her arms around her deeply sleeping beloved, and was asleep as soon as her eyes closed.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_So far, I've only tested the conduit abilities on a few Fae. Obviously, since I spend the most time with Bo, my succubus abilities show up the most often. This has led to some - well, fascinating experiences with Bo, but I sense some hesitancy in her. I can't understand why she isn't happier about this. I know she has her reservations about Jack, but he's helped me so far and hasn't asked for a thing in return._

_The serum's potency is an issue, and I've had to take higher doses with more frequency, but it's just a matter of time now before I crack that particular puzzle._

_Perhaps she'll be less hesitant once she knows that we'll always, always have each other._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

"You've got to be fucking  _kidding_ me!" Evony nearly shouted. Still, her voice briefly filled the Dal.

Several nearby heads turned, but then saw who was behind the outburst and promptly went back to their business.

"You?  _You took my serum?"_ Evony's voice dropped to a hiss, though Lauren thought it was probably out of fury rather than any fear of impropriety.

"Yes," Lauren said. "Yes, I did." She took a long drink from her glass of sangria, and then met Evony's eyes. While not thrilled that Evony had to find out this way, she would not back down.

They stared at each other for a full minute, neither looking away. Finally, Evony squinted at her.

"You wanted to be Fae." Evony nodded in understanding. "You wanted to take my place."

Lauren rolled her eyes. "Wrong on both counts."

"Then why?" Evony demanded, and it was clear she wasn't budging until she got an answer.

Lauren looked down at her glass. She thought about lying to Evony.  _Again. Or still, since I've been lying to her for months._ Frankly, though, Lauren was getting tired of holding things back. Still, she couldn't afford to give Evony - even a human Evony - more information. Information was power, and this woman didn't need anymore.

"I had my reasons, but becoming Fae or navigating Fae politics weren't on the list." She drained her glass, and then promptly refilled it.

Evony was no fool. "This has to do with the succubus, doesn't it?" She pinned Lauren with her gaze. "Sooner or later, it all comes down to her magical snatch."

Lauren froze all movement to glare at Evony.

"Oh, don't play the delicate flower with me, Dr. Lewis." Evony leaned forward menacingly, completely forgetting that she didn't pose much of a physical threat. "You've shoved me out of the picture, so the Dark is a gods be damned quagmire. Everyone with a brain knows that  _she's_  more powerful than the Blood King himself now that word's getting out about Daddy Dearest." She leaned back, as if surprised at a revelation. "You two are positioning yourselves as the colony's only real power couple."

Lauren just stared. None of that was true, yet in fact, all of it was.

"I never would have believed that you could be so ruthless, Lauren," Evony said, with a tone of almost pleased surprise. "We've more in common than I thought."

Lauren didn't like the sound of that at all.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Early afternoon light shined through Lauren's office window and splashed across her desk. Normally, she enjoyed this time of day - the quiet lull after lunch before the bustle that always seemed to hit the clinic about the same time as the city's afternoon rush hour - but today, she was distracted.

The night before, she and Bo had argued - again - about Lauren's conduit abilities. Lauren couldn't remember the specifics, but lately everything came down to Lauren's insistence that the serum was the best thing for their relationship, and Bo's emphatic denial out of mistrust of her father.

First thing this morning, she'd come to the clinic, taken a blood sample, marked it and its associated file as belonging to a "Patient X" so it would be treated blindly by staff, and submitted it for emergency analysis. The technicians had put a rush on it at her request, and had completed the tests by lunch.

She'd also taken another larger dose of the serum, and it was currently burning through her veins. It was an uncomfortable warmth, and caused mild perspiration as well as a slight metallic taste to her mouth that she found particularly unpleasant.

Lauren glanced again at the complete lab results. They weren't pretty. The serum was affecting a hell of a lot more than just her body temperature.

She slapped the folder down, pulled her journal across the desk and opened to the first available blank page.

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_The results are conclusive and indisputable. My human brain was never meant to act as a conduit, and the toll that it's taking is catastrophic. If I continue taking the serum, I will lose all of my faculties, and I will spend the rest of my life a vegetable._

_I have two choices. I can take the antidote - I could give up, forget about a future and a life with Bo, and everything I have worked for and sacrificed will be for nothing._

_Or I could make the Vechnost serum and live forever. I will need to extract the marrow and spinal fluid of a Scuffock, to use as the base of the serum, as well as my own marrow, but I'm confident that it will work. I could clone a sample in a week and subsequently generate a test serum in a couple of days, but the memory degradation is a significant concern, and I don't think I have that long to find a solution. The only viable option is to find a live test subject and extract the necessary matter as soon as possible. It's a terrible process, but the subject will recover from the procedure and survive, as will I._

_Bo won't agree with the means, but the end will be the same. We will be together. Forever._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

Lauren finished her entry, and set her pen down on the blue folder with her test results just as she heard a tap on her office door. She looked up as Vex walked in without waiting for an answer.

"I've heard the good doctor has been looking for me?" Vex said grandly, and bowed his head sarcastically.

Lauren leaned back in her chair, and eyed him with annoyance and a small amount of discomfort. "Yes," she said, almost business-like as she spoke to him. "First, you want to tell me why I've suddenly got an ogre on standby here at the clinic?"

Vex walked leisurely around her office, perusing its contents in a way that made Lauren nervous. The man was hundreds of years older than she was, but she always watched him as if he were a small child likely to break something valuable.

"Don't know what you're talking about, Doc," Vex said.

Lauren made a rude noise as she scoffed at his response. "Vex. I'm not an idiot." She sat upright in her chair. "Are you using those ogres to spy on me?"

"Oh, please," he said lightly, but his eyes looked angry. "I wouldn't presume to meddle in the affairs of the great Dr. Lewis."

"Then why are they here?"

Vex was done with his facade. "To watch your ass since you won't do it yourself!"

"What?" Lauren was surprised. "Why?"

"Are you kidding me?" Vex stomped around the office - oddly, without making a sound. "You are unclaimed, unaligned - no matter what you might say - with one serum that can strip a Fae to nothing and another that gives you conduit superpowers." He rolled his eyes dramatically. "You should be surrounded by armed guards twenty four seven." He pinned her pointedly with his gaze. "After that potential shitstorm the other night, I thought that was clear but perhaps you're not as brilliant as your reputation suggests."

"Not nothing." Of all he'd said, that one statement was the one that stuck out for Lauren. "I can make a Fae appear human, not strip them to nothing."  _Humans aren't nothing._

"Same bloody thing!"

Lauren leaned forward and lowered the tone of her voice. "I don't need your bodyguards, Vex. I want them gone."

In an out of character move that was happening with increasing frequency in their interactions, Vex dropped all drama and pretense and looked her squarely in her eyes. "No."

Lauren pushed down her temper with great effort. "Vex-"

Vex interrupted her with a wave of one arm, then clenched and unclenched his fists repeatedly, as if he were holding his Mesmer powers at bay.

"No. You won't do it, you won't let Bo do it, and even though you won't see reason, you're in danger." Vex stopped and took a cleansing breath. "I stood by and did nothing once before, and it got Hale killed and damned near killed you. So," he shook his head. "No. The ogres stay."

Lauren tossed out her remaining card. "I thought you owed me a favor."

"Well, sweetheart," he laughed humorlessly. "This ain't it."

Annoyed and outplayed, Lauren had to concede that Vex wouldn't budge and that Steve and his brothers were going to be a permanent fixture at the clinic for the time being.

"Now," he said with some irritation. "Is that the only bloody thing we're arguing about today? Because I'm a very busy man. Got people to torment, places to enlighten with my presence and all that."

Then Lauren remembered why she'd asked him here in the first place. "Do you happen to know a female Scuffock?"

He squinted at her, suspicious. "Perhaps. Why?"

"I need to get a spinal fluid and bone marrow sample from a Scuffock as soon as possible, and would like you to act as an intermediary and an assist."

Vex stared at her for a moment. Lauren thought he might be confused at what she was requesting, so she clarified. "It's a relatively short procedure - one I'll be going through as well, but it's a painful one. I'll anesthetize her, of course, and then obtain the spinal fluid, followed by the bone marrow extraction. The only reason I ask you to assist is because they have notoriously sturdy constitutions, and I'm afraid her metabolism will burn through the anesthesia before the procedure is done."

Vex's eyes had gone wide and his mouth was slightly agape. Lauren thought she was being clear about his role.

"I don't need you to do any of the surgery, Vex," she clarified. "But if she becomes conscious during the procedure, I'd like you to hold her down." His eyebrows rose. "She'll be amply compensated for her time and discomfort, Vex. I'm not a monster."

Vex laughed, certain she was joking. "Why don't we just open her skull and pull out her brains while we're at it?"

Lauren looked at him as if he were insane. "We don't need gray matter, Vex. Just the spinal fluid and marrow. And we'll need to be quick about it - I've only got one shot at this." She was giving herself just the one opportunity to try this method. If it didn't work, she'd have to try something else.

Vex stared at her, his mouth open in shock.

"Lauren, love," he said finally, his brow furrowed with worry. "What's happened to you? What are you doing?"

Lauren was taken aback and looked at him in surprise - mostly that he'd called her by name. "What do you mean?"

He took a step back, and Lauren realized she'd never seen that look on his face, and certainly not directed at her. It wasn't just fear; it was disapproval.

It was disgust.

"I can't do this with you." He swallowed almost painfully, and backed away towards the door. "I have been here before, and I promised myself I would never be here again."

He turned his back to her, and walked away. As he opened the door, he called back to her a final time. "You're on your own. And don't call me again." The door slammed behind him, and the reverberations seemed to last forever.

Lauren stared after him for a long while.

After some time, she came to the conclusion that she couldn't do anything about Vex right now. She still needed to get her own lab results from her technician - she'd labeled them "Patient X" so no one knew they were heAs soon as she got a chance to track them down and take a look at them, she'd start planning her own marrow extraction.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_What happened?_

Completely disoriented and confused, Lauren stumbled and tried to catch herself, but failed. Strong arms held her up, but her savior was too tall and lean to be Bo.

"I got you, Doc," Tamsin's voice coolly spoke into her ear.

They were walking down a long, plain hall bright with florescent lights. Lauren made out a few black doors on either side of the hall, all closed. There was no one else in sight. Where on earth was she? How had she gotten here?

"Where are we going?" Lauren whispered.

"I think I should take you to the clinic," Tamsin answered. "Maybe one of your minions can take a look at you."

The clinic. It was starting to come back to her. She'd been working at the clinic, distracted because of her disagreement with Bo about the serum. Something had made her look up, and she'd found Ze, right in front her -

Suddenly, Lauren's mind roared with the rush of memories. Ze had taken over Lauren's body, and then brought her to the courthouse. Ze hadn't wanted Bo destroyed - she'd only wanted to help Bo by arming her against her father, Hades.

Now Bo was alone in a room with three of the Ancients - Ze, Hera, and Hephaestus, the Ancient crafting a weapon for Bo. Ze and Hera's motives were unclear.

Lauren tried to free herself from Tamsin, even though she knew she couldn't walk on her own.

"Tamsin," she said weakly. "You've got to go back. Help Bo."

"Shut it," Tamsin said with annoyance. "I  _am_ helping Bo." They turned the corner at the end of the hall, and stopped just in front of the elevator doors. Tamsin pushed the call button half a dozen times.

"But Ze and Hera -"

"Bo can handle them," Tamsin stated, looking at the closed doors as if they held some interest. "Right now, I need to get  _you_ out of here."

Lauren felt helpless, and it only fueled her growing anger. "You need to go back there. I'm not important, but -"

Tamsin abruptly turned her head to glare at Lauren. "Jesus, Lewis, you still don't get it." She pinned Lauren with her eyes. "You're the most important thing in her world. And everyone knows it." She sighed, and leaned forward to push the already lit call button. "You're her weak spot - anybody with half a brain trying to get to her is going to come through you."

Lauren didn't like the sound of that at all. It made her sound like a liability, not an asset.  _Is that true? Am I her weakness?_

When she could think again, she realized that she was in a car moving quickly along the early evening -  _morning? -_ streets.  _Did I black out?_

Lauren tried to see through the fog that clouded her brain, but nothing was working right. Why was she so exhausted? Why couldn't she think straight?  _Why am I with Tamsin? And where is she taking me?_

Tamsin drove Lauren's Audi into the clinic's parking lot, and parked illegally right in front of the trauma entrance.  _How'd she get my car?_ As soon as the car stopped moving, Tamsin threw the door open, and rushed around the car to open Lauren's door, and pulled her - not ungently - out of the car and half-dragged her to the entrance.

The clinic lights were still on, though Lauren guessed that it must have been close to the end of business hours. Tamsin half-carried Lauren into the area they had set up for trauma care, and as they walked past the tiny waiting room, Lauren noticed one person sitting alone, reading a magazine, even though the trauma bays were empty.

He'd be tough to miss even if the room had been full.

"Eric?" Lauren stopped, though Tamsin made a sound of annoyance. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, hi, Dr. Lewis." Eric greeted her with a smile, and set his magazine down in his lap. His well-developed ogre frame made the waiting room chairs look like they were designed for small children. "Just catching up on current events."

Lauren was fairly certain all the magazines in the waiting room were at least three months old. She knew she was dazed, but this seemed even more confusing than her condition might warrant. "Are you waiting for someone?"

"Not really." Eric replied amiably.

"Then why are you here?"

"Hey, Lewis," Tamsin interrupted. "Can you have social hour later? Let's get you checked out." She dragged Lauren towards one of the trauma beds, and shouted at one of the staff to meet them there.

Lauren looked back at Eric, but he was once again looking at his magazine.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

The memory loss was now a significant concern. Lauren couldn't remember hours-long blocks of time over the last few days, and as she stared at her calendar, she was having a hard time convincing herself that the date was correct. She'd lost so much time, she couldn't rightly recall what day it was.

She needed some clarity in order to figure out how to fix the problem.

Back before she became Lauren Lewis, back when she was Karen Beattie at Yale, she and a couple of her friends had perfected a plant-based supplementary cocktail that provided a brief period of lucidity. They'd mostly used it to get their brains in a peak state for exams - or to clear their brains of hangover effects.

Lauren grabbed a few of the ingredients from the clinic's tiny kitchen, and the rest from her lab. Oddly, she remembered the formula perfectly - she surmised that after all this time, it was like riding a bicycle. She quickly mixed a batch, and then tasted it to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. It tasted like the kale she used as its base, but it was still miles better than an Army IMP, so she drank the rest of it.

Then, she returned to her office, and sat down to read her journal entries for the last few weeks, to try to figure out where things went wrong with the serum, and why her memory was still being affected.

Three hours later, she set the journals down on her desk, opened a desk drawer and pulled out a box of tissue. Her face was wet with tears, her nose was running, and she was trembling with shock and horror.

_Dear sweet Gaia, what have I done?!_

From what she could gather from her increasingly fragmented notes, she had injected herself with the serum 17 times. With each dose, she had done significant damage to her physical body, which led to decreased mental performance.

Lauren grabbed the lab results folder and looked at them again. How she'd managed to continue functioning  _at all_ baffled her.

It had taken little more than a week for Lauren to lose all sense of self, and throw out every single tenet she held dear. She had almost violated the Hippocratic oath - again - she had tested and probably broken the bounds of friendship, and finally - and this was the worst - committed absolute treason against her heart.

She had trusted Jack instead of Bo.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

-  _JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_The previous three days of entries are almost illegible. Long ago, I chose to keep a handwritten journal over an electronic archive because I wanted to leave something tangible from my life's work. I've somehow detailed my own descent into madness._

_It should never have come to this, but here I am. I have broken nearly every vow I swore to uphold. I have lied, I have cheated, I have stolen, I have played God and by my actions, sentenced someone to death - in every conceivable way, I have let myself sink to the very depths of what little humanity I have left. I deserted my friends, my family - I have done things for which I can never be forgiven, and I can never take them back. And now, the final straw - I have been overtaken by a powerful Fae, and forced to stand against my lover._

_Worst of all, I have hurt Bo, and I'm about to do it again. She has the fate of the whole world in her hands, and I have been a dangerous distraction. And so, even though my heart is breaking, and though she may never forgive me for leaving her, I must break things off with her. Stopping Jack is too important, and I have clearly demonstrated that I am a weak link. I won't be the thing that causes her to fail._

_I won't be the thing that Jack uses against her._

_My dreams of forever with her are just that - dreams - and I must wake up and realize that there is no room in this world for a happily ever after. I cannot be Fae and keep myself - my real and human self - intact._

_I will take the antidote that will restore my humanity, all my Fae conduit capabilities will cease, and then, I will tell Bo what must be. She won't forgive me, but she'll move on. I have seen her do this before - with me, with Hale, with Kenzi. She will set her broken heart aside to do what must be done to win the war. And I believe, above all else, that she will win. That's what she does - and who she is. She is a warrior. It's one of the many reasons why I love her._

_I may find peace at some point in my life, though I cannot possibly atone for what I've done. I may even find companionship before I take my last breath, but I must say this._

_My heart and soul will never love another the way I love Bo, though she can never be mine._

-  _END EXCERPT -_

Lauren finished writing the last sentence in her journal entry and set the pen down. She leaned back in her desk chair and turned to face the window, looking out on the city street. Bo had texted, asking her to come over for a late dinner, but Lauren had yet to text her back.

She was delaying the inevitable.

In her peripheral vision, a small white box - not unlike the one that had originally held the necklace that currently adorned her lover's beautiful neck - sat on her desk. It seemed to take up a lot of room for such a small box.

She took a deep breath, then quickly reached for the box, opened it, and pulled out the injector inside. Before she could lose her nerve, she quickly pushed up a sleeve, and injected the contents into her bloodstream, her eyes blurring with tears so suddenly she couldn't even see her arm anymore once she felt the plunger fully engage. A mild burning sensation spread from the insertion point to her whole arm, and then throughout her body until she felt the uncomfortable tingles everywhere.

It hurt, but what hurt more with every passing second was the death of the dream of forever with Bo.

The sobs overtook her as she tossed the injector back on her desk, and she leaned forward to cry into her hands.

 

**Chapter 9**

**_10:49 PM_ **

Lauren sat on the floor of her loft, her back against a painted cement wall. All the loft's lights were off, even the one over the rarely used stove, and only the city lights outside provided illumination for her to see.

She didn't want to see anything too clearly.

All things considered, Bo had taken it well. She had asked, only once, for Lauren to reconsider, but Lauren had said that she could no longer continue their relationship, told Bo she loved her, and kissed Bo goodbye before leaving. Bo had said nothing more.

Her eyes had told Lauren a different story.

Lauren wasn't sure how she'd made it home, since she'd navigated the distance between Bo's clubhouse and her own loft through vision increasingly blurred by tears, but here she was.

The overall ache from the antidote had faded. She'd managed to drink several glasses of water, but couldn't bring herself to eat anything. She was empty, beyond exhausted, and once again, lost and alone.

Lauren was honestly amazed that she was still breathing air. How someone could hurt so much from heartbreak and shame yet not die from the pain was currently beyond her comprehension.

She could have gone to bed, but she was too heartbroken to sleep. She could have moved from the floor, but it would take energy she didn't currently possess, and being down here suited her mood at the moment. She might have called someone to ease her suffering, but if she couldn't call the one person she wanted more than anyone, what was the point?

So Lauren sat on the floor, and stared out the window at the city skyline and what few stars she could see, and let her fractured mind wander where it would.

**_11:51 PM_ **

Lauren looked over at the microwave's display in the kitchen, absently surprised to see that she'd been sitting in the same place for an hour.

It didn't seem like she was going to move now, either.

The list played repeatedly in her mind's eye.

Lied to Bo about joining the Dark. Lied to everyone about leaving the Light. Stole from the Dark Fae archives. Not trusting Bo about Rainer. Not trusting Bo, period.

Slept with Evony and made her human. Blackmailed Evony into creating a clinic so she could create a serum she had no intention of giving Evony and ultimately, took herself. Lied to Evony for months about her progress.

Lied to Bo about where the serum came from. And then - worst of all - Lauren had listened to Jack. To Hades, ruler of Tartarus.

Every sin. Every transgression. Every unintended consequence of every bad choice that had brought her here.

She had royally fucked it all up.

What had happened to her ideals? Was she really so morally fluid that her beliefs, her  _oaths_ , could just fly out the window whenever she thought it would serve her?

To think that by stripping Evony of her Fae abilities that she was saving Bo's life - when Bo had proven time and time again that she could take care of herself against impossible odds - in retrospect, this had been a horrible and arrogant choice. Yes, the Morrigan had been dangerous, but Bo would have  _never_ asked Lauren to do what she had done.

_Is that why I chose not to tell her?_

When had she decided that she could twist the truth to suit her?

She had been deferent to the old Ash, never stepped out of line, and always did exactly what she was told. There had been no subterfuge, no hidden agenda, no personal goals outside of curing Nadia.

Lauren realized that all of that had changed when Bo came to town. Soon after, whatever she could do to help Bo, she moved heaven and earth to do it. But when had she decided that it was ok to completely color outside of the lines?

Since when did  _a woman_ mean more to her than doing what was right? Furthermore, Bo would kick her ass for making those choices, would  _never_  have asked them of her, and would insist that she get her priorities back in line.

 _This stops now,_ Lauren thought.

So, now that she had this giant pile of fuckups in her immediate past that she had to learn to live with, what in the world was she going to do now?

**_12:43 AM_ **

Now that the damage had been done, now that Lauren had taken the antidote and broken off things with Bo, now that she was alone in the dark hashing over every mistake and every bad choice she'd made in the last few months, she came to the subject she least wanted to examine.

Massimo.

Despite her current emotional state, Lauren tried to put a little distance between the details of the experiences she'd had and the feelings they caused. She began by simply reviewing the facts.

Massimo had killed Hale. He had kidnapped Lauren. He had swallowed the Origin Seed in an attempt to become the most powerful being in the Fae world, and failed because his human body couldn't handle the immensity of that much power.

Lauren hadn't kidnapped or killed anyone -  _this time,_ she thought darkly - but she had damned Evony to a fate the woman would never have chosen for herself. Lauren had repeatedly injected herself with a serum with the intention of changing her own human makeup.

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she and Massimo had quite a few things in common. And for all the mistakes she'd made and the horrors he'd committed, they'd both done it out of love.

The shame and self-disgust nearly broke her again.

Massimo had been childlike in his pursuit of Evony's love and acceptance, but vicious and manipulative in his actions. While Lauren hadn't flat out killed anyone, people were still dead, and she'd done irreparable damage by blindly searching for everlasting life.

Evony was right - Lauren had been ruthless in the pursuit of her goal, and only near death did she concede.

For a single moment, Lauren was glad that she was emotionally raw and damned near spiritually naked. Perhaps hitting rock bottom hard enough to break bones would force her back to square one.

She had to relearn who she truly was, because the mistakes that had brought her here could never be repeated.

**_1:17 AM_ **

Destroy them. Keep them. Destroy them. Keep them. Destroy them. Keep them.

She really wanted to destroy them.

Those journals detailed her biggest failure. Every injection, every cited reference to every twisted dark archive volume she'd read, every step of her descent into - whatever the hell she'd been. It was all there on page after increasingly demented page.

 _Hell, if Evony ever reads_ them _, I am fucked._ Lauren's journals showed how far back her plan had begun to neutralize Evony as a threat. It wasn't pretty. Human or not, Evony would find a way to kill her.

Yet, for several reasons, she needed to keep them.

For one, she wanted to acknowledge the scientific process. The research she'd conducted had been extensive and, while hurried in some places, quite thorough.

For another, there might be something in those journals that she'd need to reference later. There was a great deal of information that had nothing to do with her serum's research - cases involving patients that she'd treated, work that she'd done with Sam.

 _Sam._ Lauren was scared to wonder what Sam would have thought about all this.

And lastly, she didn't want to destroy them only because their existence made her extremely uncomfortable, or feared that someone else might find them. Those were not logical responses, and no way to reach a decision about the scientific ramifications of keeping or destroying them.

Then there was the serum itself.

Perhaps, if she worked on a synthetic version? Modified her hypothesis, and take a few months to run the proper simulations? What if she just slowed down and took more time with the research? She didn't necessarily have to test it again on herself, right?

She wondered if alcoholics and addicts used similar arguments.

Ultimately, though, she knew that she would not continue this line of research. It was dangerous, and addicting, with the possibility of permanent side effects at best and death at worst - and after having seen how far she might be willing to go to achieve success, she knew that she needed to abandon it because she couldn't be trusted to respond rationally to anything involving her personal relationship.

She had to discontinue all research associated with that serum. Which meant that she wouldn't be taking it in the future.

She would remain human.

Though she thought she was done crying, something in her broke at the knowledge that this path and its possibilities needed to be pushed aside forever, and the tears started again.

Lauren let them fall.

**_2:21 AM_ **

She wondered if, considering how much she'd cried already this night, she might be severely dehydrated. How much could she cry before there was nothing left?

Lauren understood, logically, that the pain she felt was psychosomatic, but she would swear on a stack of Gray's right now that she was physically broken. Something deep in her abdomen  _ached_  from severing herself from Bo.

Perhaps she'd made a huge mistake breaking things off so quickly. There were so many other paths they could take. Had she picked the most painful path possible?

And there was so much she needed to apologize for, so much Bo needed to know so that she would understand  _all_ of it - why the serum meant so much, why losing herself was such a dangerous and frightening proposition.

Lauren had nothing but her knowledge, her skills and her self-respect, and she had used both of the former to utterly destroy the latter. Could she really tell Bo about all of that? And have Bo still love her when Lauren was done revealing the cold, bitter truth?

Tonight, though, she wished she could just pull Bo inside her head, to see why she'd made the choices she had. She didn't want any more secrets between them - Lauren's lies of omission had nearly gotten herself killed, and put Bo in a dangerous place.

Why had she kept so many secrets from Bo?

_Is it possible that I don't trust her as much as I say I do?_

**_3:09 AM_ **

She wondered what it might be like to love someone else. Someone other than Bo.

The first time she fell in love, she'd been a sophomore at Yale. A dazzling lacrosse player from Montana, of all places. The sex was hot, everything was urgent, everything was important.

Now, it took Lauren a good full minute to remember her name.

She'd dated a few others while in college and medical school, but didn't truly fall in love again until Nadia. There was something magical and idealistic about Nadia - a purity of spirit that Lauren envied and found irresistible. It hadn't been perfect - in so many ways, she felt as if Nadia had only endured Lauren's quirks and dedication - but it had been true. Until the Congo. Until the Fae.

And then there was Bo.

What  ** _was_**  it about this one woman?

Sometimes, Lauren felt like her lungs couldn't get enough air when Bo was around. Yet when she held Bo in her arms, she felt so, so  _full_ \- as if the rest of the world could just disappear and she would not care one little bit. Something about Bo turned Lauren's brain off - and that was an immense effect because she was  _always_ thinking, always planning, always working some puzzle.

Lauren could walk into the Dal, find it packed wall to wall with people, yet sense immediately whether or not Bo was in the room, even if she couldn't see her. When they were in the same room, she could close her eyes and she would still know where Bo stood. What kind of science was that? Did Bo emit some frequency that some part of Lauren's hindbrain could hear?

_Seriously. Why her?_

Lauren was like a satellite orbiting Bo, and Bo had a gravitational pull that she could not deny or resist.

Sometimes she wondered if she was just in love with the idea of Bo. The strong warrior, the noble spirit, physically perfect, drop dead gorgeous, generous to a fault, and good  _gods,_ the  _sex_ -

_Christ, Lewis. Give it a rest._

And in her heart of hearts, her deepest darkest truth was that she feared that she didn't really care who Bo slept with. Lauren's ego put up a fight because she didn't want to feel taken for granted, or used, or walked on, but there was a part of her that would take Bo anyway she could get her.

Love was so odd, she thought distantly. There was no rhyme or reason for it, no telling how it worked, no logic to it at all - you either loved someone or you didn't.

And as sure as she knew the base elements by heart and in order, she knew that she loved Bo Dennis.

It didn't matter what it would be like to love someone else. Lauren wasn't capable of it.

**_4:52 AM_ **

It was easy to forget that Bo wasn't just another Fae.

Lauren was often so despondent over the fact that, as a human, she wasn't enough for Bo's succubus appetites, that she forgot about the big picture altogether. Or only thought of Bo in the context of human vs. Fae, average vs. superhuman.

Bo had been raised human, and only discovered her true nature as a result of a human death - her first boyfriend, Kyle. She ran away from her adopted parents when they turned against her instead of helping her, and was on her own for ten years.

By the time Lauren met her, Bo was streetwise and strong, but had no idea who she was, how she did what she did when she killed people, and at that point, she was introduced to her true nature.

That in itself was such a big deal, such a huge contrast for Bo, that she only seemed to refer to her life from two perspectives - that of a woman raised by humans in a human world, or that of an unaligned succubus in a world of Light vs. Dark Fae.

The problem with that was that it didn't take into account the even larger picture. Bo was one of the most powerful Fae -  _ever_.

Without training, and no understanding of her own abilities, she had faced two powerful Fae before representatives of the whole colony and survived a barbaric test meant to destroy her. Over the last five years, she had defeated every significant opponent who had ever tried to get the best of her - including those even the Blood King feared.

She was so powerful, so compelling, two Fae warriors over a thousand years old - Dyson and Tamsin - each with centuries of battle experience, had fallen in line and let Bo take the lead.

Bo had even walked the under-realms, and lived to tell the tale.

Now that Lauren knew the whole truth, Bo's many victories in spite of absurdly high odds made perfect sense. Not to discount Bo's own persistence and cunning, but she was bred to be a champion - grand-daughter of the Blood King himself, daughter of one of the most powerful succubi to walk the earth and, as recently discovered, daughter of Hades of the Ancients, the most legendary Fae in recorded history.

"Badass" didn't quite cover it. And Lauren had chosen instead to focus on the drama of their relationship. As if that were the biggest issue at hand.

How could Lauren forget that? How could she forget about the time the spirit of the powerful succubus within Bo spoke of her own power and used it to save Lauren's life by sucking the chi out of six different people at once? And that was  _before_  they'd pledged their love to one another.

Once she'd even been afraid of that power, but now - now she knew how much Bo loved her.

Still, if Lauren's life were threatened now, what would Bo do? Even more frightening, what - or who - would Bo sacrifice to save Lauren?

The Dark Queen within Bo was strong enough to save them all, yes - but she was also capable of destroying every last one of them.

And Lauren had not only betrayed her by siding with Hades, but she had once again broken Bo's heart.

Lauren idly wondered why she didn't fear the Dark Queen's retribution.

**_6:04 AM_ **

It was like a leap in an icy stream when the thought occurred to Lauren.

She didn't know why Bo loved her.

At this point, it really didn't matter since Lauren had ended their relationship, but Lauren fixated on the point for a while.

_Why me?_

When Lauren looked at Bo, she saw a beautiful woman and a powerful succubus who would walk the earth for a long, long time. This brief time together, these few years in each other's lives, would be a splash in a bucket for Bo. Lauren honestly believed that Bo would have so many lovers in her lifetime that her memories of Lauren would eventually fade.

Lauren had never once thought that, as a human, she'd be able to keep Bo for very long. Bo was never hers to keep.

Perhaps that's how the madness began, with the hope that it might be possible to be all that Bo would ever need, and that led to dangerous choices on Lauren's part.

She stared off into the dark for a long while, wondering why Bo had chosen her, and it took her a long, long time to admit that she'd never know the answer.

If there was no rhyme or reason to explain why she loved Bo, the same could be said for why Bo loved her.

**_7:18 AM_ **

She stretched her legs out in front of her, and stared at the skyline she could see from her loft. It really was a beautiful city, and while she couldn't yet see the sun directly, sunlight already washed a few of the high-rises downtown.

Lauren didn't have to stay here.

While her identity was fabricated, the credentials were real. She had attended Yale and served in the military as Karen Beattie, but thanks to her indentured servitude to the Fae and some creative identification modification under the direction of the old Ash, Dr. Lauren Lewis now had those same credentials.

Lauren could pack all this shit up, set fire to her life in this colony and just start over somewhere else. Somewhere far away - somewhere human.

She played the thought out to its natural conclusion, and arrived quite quickly at the truth: she'd be bored out of her mind in six months. The very  _thought_  that the Fae existed would plague her for the rest of her professional life. She would always know that somewhere, someone would be working on the science that she had pioneered, but she herself would no longer be contributing to that research, and it would eat her away to nothing.

No, returning exclusively to the human world wasn't an option. Even if it were possible for her to remain undetected by the Fae.

She could move to another colony.

In fact, the thought had crossed her mind more than once. After Nadia's death, she'd considered it and then ruled it out because she figured it would be just as bad somewhere else. It was possible she could find a place where she would be valued for her experience and expertise.

It was more likely, however, that she'd end up somewhere humans were treated even worse. What had she told Bo once about choosing the cage that gave her the most control?

But when she thought about leaving Bo…about being somewhere else in the world, knowing Bo was here…

That settled that line of thought rather quickly. Whether they were lovers or friends - or neither - she wasn't going anywhere.

**_8:58 AM_ **

It was a testament to her weakened condition that she'd sat on the floor such a long time. She'd been so dehydrated that she hadn't needed to go to the bathroom the entire night, and was only now beginning to feel the pangs of hunger.

Not that she thought she could eat.

She washed her hands thoroughly, and then dried them on a nearby hand towel before forcing herself to look at her own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

It took sheer force of will to hold her own eyes.

_No matter what I've done, I will not break._

This wasn't the first time in her life that Lauren had made colossal mistakes, but right now - just as she had back then - she could not allow herself to quit, to give up, to grovel, to hide, to let the regret and shame and heartache break her. If there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to hold her head up and keep moving forward.

_You failed. Try again._

It was an old mantra. One she hadn't used in a very long time - a tool to help her through school, and the aftermath of her brother's death. Back when she was in graduate school, when an experiment hadn't worked as she'd hypothesized, and it seemed like all of her work had been for naught, she'd give herself five minutes to freak out, scream, cry, rant about the unfairness of the universe. Five minutes - and then she'd wipe her tears, figuratively dust herself off, and get back to work.

_You failed. Try again._

She held her own gaze, and tried to push back the scathing self-judgment for just a few seconds longer.

_Well, this time, Lewis, you've cried enough. Your five minutes are up. Get back to work._

**_10:13 AM_ **

She started with a shower.

This wasn't her first heartbreak, thought it was definitely the worst. She knew the key was putting one foot in front of the other, and sticking to the basics. Hydration, hygiene, nourishment. So she drank a liter of water and headed for the shower. Then she'd see if she could force herself to eat something.

The water was scalding hot - as if she could use it to wash away the shame and the guilt - but helped ease the tightness in her shoulders and lower back.

She really, really,  _really_  wanted to take it all back. To go to Bo, and say that she was wrong, and tell her everything. Yet Lauren knew that she couldn't do that - not now.

Right now, Lauren needed to be a soldier until they'd figured out how to beat Jack. And her role this time was completely different. This wasn't like the Garuda, when she'd been the key to its defeat. She didn't think that she could use science to help Bo against her father.

She'd wanted to remove herself as a distraction, so that's what she needed to do. At least for now. Help Bo when asked, stay out of the way when needed, provide whatever support she could. She had lived without Bo before, so she could do it again.

It hurt like hell, but she'd brought it on herself, and she needed to be strong enough to set aside her own needs. Lauren had already taken up too much space in Bo's world. She needed to fall in line, not draw too much attention to herself - no matter how much it hurt - and help Bo win the war.

Skin red and raw from the pounding spray of the shower, Lauren wrapped a towel around herself and stepped into the cooler air of her bedroom to track down some clean clothes.

The rest would have to wait.

**_11:41 AM_ **

Lauren sat in a corner booth at the Dal, an untouched glass of single malt scotch on the table in front of her. She'd planned to get some food in her system, but when she opened her mouth to order a salad, a request for the scotch had come out instead.

She'd been staring at the glass for about twenty minutes.

Lauren had come to the painful and irrefutable conclusion, that she had made the biggest mistake of her life by breaking things off with Bo the night before, but there was no way to take it back. Not yet.

First of all, after everything she had done, and everything she and Bo had been through, there was no way in any world she could name that Bo would take her back once she'd learned the truth. And second, they needed to get Hades out of the picture.

She'd stared at the glass some more, while the air moved in a swirl around her.

"You know, you're putting fine whiskey - the Scottish kind - to waste."

It took her a few moments to even notice he was there. "What?" She looked at Vex, clearly confused. How long had he been sitting across from her? "Oh, hi, Vex." She sat back, and smiled grimly. "I'm sorry - if you need a massage for your hand or something, I'm not really in the space right now."

He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "My hand? My bloody hand?" He lowered his voice. "What about that wicked cock-up you proposed the other day? How about we talk about  _that?"_

Lauren's brows furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

He leaned in, a surprised look on his face. "What am I talking about? Are you kidding me?" He looked around quickly to make sure no one was listening. "You, me, any Scuffock that might be around? The shitty method you used to call in your favor? This ringing any bells for you?"

She cleared her throat quietly, and then spoke in a hushed low voice. "I don't remember anything like that."

He laughed. "What? Are you playing me, doc?" His laugh faded to nothing as he seemed to realize that she wasn't kidding. He stared at her for a few moments, and though she was filled with shame and embarrassment, she didn't look away. "You really don't remember, do you?"

Lauren didn't say anything.

He pushed back so abruptly, the leather in the booth squeaked. "Bloody hell." He shook his head, picked up her glass of scotch and promptly tossed it all back in one gulp.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

It was the dead of night, and Lauren sat in Bo's bedroom, quiet and, though she was not the only person in the room, utterly alone.

Bo lay in her bed, rendered unconscious by her grief. Her mother, Aoife, and her grandfather, Fitzpatrick McCorrigan of Clan Fin Arvin, the Blood King, were dead - slain by Bo's father, Hades. The shock and devastation had been too much for Bo, and Dyson had found her, kneeling and covered in blood, between the bodies of her mother and grandfather.

Evidently, even Bo had her limits.

They'd brought her here, to her house, instead of the clinic. Dyson - and Vex, oddly enough - had insisted that this place was more secure than the clinic because they didn't know who might be looking for them. Lauren had disagreed, but didn't want to waste valuable time on the argument.

Instead, she'd managed to get some monitoring equipment from the clinic over to Bo's clubhouse, and they were all taking turns keeping an eye on Bo - watching for any change, but it had been days.

Three long, quiet, painful, slowly moving days. Dyson asked repeatedly why she wasn't waking up. Tamsin didn't say much but wouldn't leave Bo's side. Vex came and went, but stood and stared at Bo for extended lengths of time whenever he showed up.

Each of them had voiced concern that she might not wake up at all, but Lauren refused to agree with them.

Bo had to wake up. Lauren had too much to apologize for.

Dyson was once again checking the perimeter of the clubhouse. Vex had gone out to fetch some food for everyone. Tamsin was downstairs, pretending to be asleep on the couch, but actually watching cartoons on the big screen television over the rarely used fireplace.

Lauren sat alone in a chair, eyes moving from Bo's face to the equipment display and back again as the minutes crawled by.

She'd spent hours over the last three days thinking about the many layers of her relationship with Bo. What had only occurred to her tonight, however, as she watched Bo's unconscious yet steady breathing, was that she'd always thought of herself as more than or less than Bo, but never Bo's equal. Better educated, because she was a doctor while Bo had never finished high school. More experienced with the Fae, while Bo simply gleaned what little information she needed to beat the next bad guy.

And Lauren had thought herself less valuable, because she was only human.

They had been friends, lovers, girlfriends, but Lauren had never been a partner to Bo. She was either trying to protect and guide Bo, treating her almost like a willful teenager, or she was convinced that she herself wasn't enough for someone as powerful as Bo.

Always above or below. Never beside. Never equal.

Lauren realized that above all else, this was her greatest failure.

Tamsin's words in the courthouse came back to her. She hadn't paid much attention to them at the time, but Tamsin had taken her to safety so that Bo could fight without worrying about Lauren.

" _You're the most important thing in her world. And everyone knows it."_

Everyone, it seemed, but Lauren.

_I want her. I love her. I don't even have a life without her anymore. I have given up so much and come so far from who I was. I am unrecognizable - unless she is looking at me. She sees something in me, something she clearly holds dear._

Bo had been right, from the start. There would always be some reason why they shouldn't be together, some battle that had to be fought, some evil that needed to be stopped.

Lauren thought she could probably add to that list - some puzzle that needed to be solved, some threat that only her experience and expertise could neutralize, some  _thing_  that she absolutely had to do.

All this time, these years wasted because of what she thought she  _had_  to do.

Lauren sat straight up in her chair with the coldest realization of her life.

_I don't have to do shit._

Not only that, but she could  _choose_  to decide what was important and what wasn't.

None of it mattered unless she decided that it did. She couldn't control any of it, and her continued attempt to do exactly that had driven her so far from who she wanted to be she didn't even recognize the terrain.

Furthermore, no one was ordering her around anymore. She'd been making her own decisions and carving her own path - albeit a dangerous and harmful one - for weeks.

Vex had been right all along. In word and deed, Lauren was unclaimed and unaligned. While she was probably still under contract to the Light, who was going to enforce it? And while she was not officially Dark, she had proved that she could get whatever she needed whenever she needed it.

She didn't have to do a damned thing she didn't want to do. The choices were all hers.

Which meant that - perhaps - she could choose to have the one thing, the one  _person_  she wanted more than anything.

If that person would just wake up.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_\- JOURNAL EXCERPT -_

_I seriously considered destroying the sections of journal that detail my experiences creating and self-administering the serum meant to lengthen my lifespan and increase the Fae conduit capabilities that resulted from its effects. Since I will never use that formula, or repeat that process, it seems prudent to destroy all evidence of its existence._

_Yet I am not infallible, and it is only shame, or worse, self-importance, that would make me remove all trace of my greatest failure. So the journals remain intact._

_I am a human being, and that is who I'll stay. While I am saddened by the knowledge that my time in this world is limited, I have rededicated myself to my commitment to healing and to the pursuit of knowledge, with the best interests in mind of humans and Fae alike._

_I must do the best I can while I am here._

_As for Bo…She woke from her vegetative state after we revived her using an elixir involving a Shtriga moth. She is emotionally weary, but driven to do what it takes to send Hades back to Tartarus._

_Much has happened, including the discovery that Jack - Hades - disguised himself as Bo and slept with Tamsin. Tamsin is now pregnant with his child, and the pregnancy is accelerating rapidly. It's only been days, but she looks months along. The legends say that Valkyries die in childbirth, but I am hoping against hope that this is Fae hearsay, and there may be some medical way to keep her here on this mortal plane with her child._

_Bo is on a mission with Kenzi - who returned to town when she heard about Trick and Aiofe - to track down the Pyrippus. I hope they are successful - I want this over as soon as possible._

_We haven't talked about us at all._

_One should never make life-changing decisions while under emotional and physiological duress. No, I cannot spend eternity with her, and that won't change no matter what I do. Yet I can't help but wonder if I should have talked to her more about what happened._

_There's so much she doesn't know._

_I owe her the truth, and an apology. When all this mess is over with Jack - and it will be, because that woman could conquer the entire world if she wanted - I will tell her everything. She may never forgive me for the times I fell for Jack's machinations, but she'll at least know why I did it._

_\- END EXCERPT -_

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

_MESSAGE FROM KENZI: Meet Bo at the clubhouse ASAP. Urgent._

Lauren half-stood from the chair behind the desk the moment she saw who the message was from, and was grabbing her car keys as she finished reading it. If she hurried, she could drive the distance between the clinic and the clubhouse in twenty minutes.

"Dr. Lewis?" A rich tenor raised Lauren's eyes from her phone, and she saw a stranger standing uncomfortably in the doorway to her office.

For a moment, she was worried that this was another death threat, but knew Steve was nearby - not that she relaxed. "Yes?"

The strange man was handsome, with long sandy blond hair that framed his head and brushed across his shoulders. He was so tall, his head barely cleared the doorframe, and his broad shoulders were accented by the tailored light colored blazer he wore over a simple white t-shirt and dark stylish jeans.

"I'm Julius." He stared as if he expected her to know him, and looked even more uncomfortable when her lack of response indicated she didn't. "I am, uh, was," he paused to swallow then continued speaking. "Sam's boyfriend."

"Oh!" Lauren stood upright with surprise. This was the musician Sam had mentioned from time to time. "Hello!" Flustered with the need to answer Kenzi's call, but not wanting to insult this man with her own urgency, Lauren moved around her desk and closer to the door. "Um, come in. I'm just on my way out, but -"

"I won't keep you, I just -" He awkwardly reached inside his blazer and pulled out an envelope. "Sam's will was read yesterday, and he wanted me to give you this."

He stretched out an arm to offer her the thin envelope. Lauren took it from him gingerly, but wasn't quite sure what to say when she looked back up into his eyes.

"I just want you to know," Julius said. "Sam was thrilled to be working here. He couldn't stop talking about you." Julius laughed sadly, and his eyes misted a bit. "Thank you so much for giving him the opportunity to do the work that meant so much to him."

Lauren wasn't sure what to say, but was sure that not saying anything would be a worse mistake than saying the wrong thing. "It was a pleasure to work with Sam. I don't think I ever told him how much it meant to me-"

The words got stuck in her throat, and for a moment, they stood staring at each other, two strangers wrapped up in their own grief for the man who'd brought together in this moment, wanting to connect with each other because of their love for Sam, but unable to get past the fact that they didn't know each other at all.

And suddenly, Lauren knew what to say. "He told me you are a very talented man and that I should come to a recital sometime." She smiled gently. "Please let me know when you're performing and I'll be sure to come."

He smiled with something akin to relief. "I'll do that." Julius didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, then abruptly offered one. "It's good to finally meet you, Dr. Lewis."

Lauren clasped his hand firmly. "And you, Julius."

With that, he let go of her hand, and with a final smile, left her office.

She knew she had to get to the clubhouse, but was curious what message Sam had left her. Lauren walked back to her desk, set down her keys and phone, and sat in the chair once more. With slightly trembling hands, she opened the envelope.

It was completely unadorned, and had only her first name on the outside in Sam's scrawling script. It saddened her to think that he'd actually never called her by that name, especially since he'd been the closest thing to a friend that she'd had in a long while.

Sam's message was only one page long.

_Dr. L,_

_If you're reading this, I've likely shuffled off this mortal coil - hopefully I was passed out cold after making love and then stepped on by an elephant._

Lauren laughed through the tears that had filled her eyes. Of course Sam would crack a joke.

_In my office, under the floorboards beneath my desk chair, is a safe with a biometric lock that only my blood or yours can open. Inside you'll find all my secured notes from the Dark Elders projects we've been working on. Wouldn't want these to fall into the wrong hands, and you're the only one I can think of who'll know what to do with them._

_In addition, you'll find a few vials of a new supplement I've created based on our analysis of the Heraclid samples. I'm so very sorry - I have tried everything I could think of to enhance the formula and achieve the exact opposite result of what you did with your own research, but I can't get around the basic fact that, while similar, Fae and human physiologies are inherently different._

_I wanted to somehow synthetically make you Fae, but I can't._

_For as long as I've known about you, I've heard people speak of you and Bo almost as if you're both sides of the same coin, but they only talk about_ _ her _ _strength,_ _ her _ _bravery,_ _ her _ _independence, and think she's mad for being so attached to a human, as if you possess none of these things._

_They have absolutely no idea what an exceptional person you are._

_While you are by far the most brilliant being - human or Fae - that I've ever known, you are also the most kind. I can't tell you how much it's meant to me to work with you, and I wanted to thank you by giving you what I thought would be the greatest gift - the possibility of immortality - but I've come as far as I can on my own._

_The supplement won't regenerate wounded tissue or reverse aging, but if taken monthly in small increments, it will strengthen existing human cells and add resilience to new cells that your body will normally generate over time - and even succubus feeds won't minimize their efficacy. If you keep up your diet and exercise to maintain a strong base level, this supplement could help you live for a long, long time._

_A blind fool could see how much you love her, Lauren, and I don't know what's keeping you apart, but I hope you figure it out. You really should see the way your eyes shine when you look at her. I'm sorry I couldn't make you Fae, but hopefully a long human life beside her will be enough._

_\- Sam_

Lauren tried to keep the letter from crumpling in her hand but the sobs made it impossible. She cried and cried and just couldn't stop.

Sam had given her what she'd wanted all along.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren had seen many horrific things in her life.

From emergency room traumas to battlefield wounds, from unintended consequences of poor choices to the callous, planned evil some could inflict on others, from both terrible humans and truly wicked Fae - her frequent nightmares had replayed them all more times than she could count.

Watching Bo draw the chi from every living being in the entire city, and thinking her lost forever was one more thing to add to that list.

Yet her life had also been filled with wondrous sights that were burned into memory. The first time she'd ever seen the ocean, soon after she'd moved to New Haven. Sunset on the cold desert mountains west of Kabul. The night sky deep in a northern province of the Congo.

The first time she saw Bo.

Of all the beautiful things she had seen, the stark, soul-breaking, heart-stopping beauty of Tamsin's death - her  _rise -_  was the clear leader. By the time the last firefly of light rose through the roof of Vex's monstrosity of a vehicle, Lauren's tears had blurred her vision.

Tamsin was gone. Forever.

Lauren didn't think she could call Tamsin a friend. For too long, she'd viewed her as an adversary - at worst, a dire enemy, at best, a bitter rival, but lately, she'd come to think of her as an ally. After hundreds of years of service to the Dark, Tamsin had chosen the good fight.

In one moment, Lauren was nearly broken by the weight of one more loss, and the injustice of Tamsin dying in childbirth, and in the next, she was filled with the thin, fragile light of hope, because for Lauren, it was  _not_  too late.

No matter how little or how much time she had left, Lauren would not waste another moment.

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

The Dal had been closed since Trick's death, so there were no other patrons in the pub. While Bo had been successful in sending Hades back to Tartarus, and even though she'd restored chi to all the people of the city, effectively bringing them back from the dead, none of Lauren's companions were certain of sanctuary anywhere else, so collectively they'd decided to fall back to the one place they all knew, and could defend.

Lauren had been thinking about Hades - about Jack - ever since Bo had defeated him. Jack's plan hadn't been to use Lauren against Bo. Jack's convoluted, twisted, brilliant plan had been to get Lauren away from Bo altogether - to isolate Bo from her chosen family.

Well, it had worked beautifully. Lauren had played right into his hands.

_Jesus, Lewis. The hubris. You've got a really big head for that tiny brain of yours._

She'd already had another five-minute freak-out about that.

Mark took his place behind the bar, and asked if anyone wanted anything to drink.

"Whiskey," Lauren said. "The Scottish kind." She leaned sideways against the bar as she looked around the room.

Kenzi was speaking rapidly to Tamsin's newborn daughter, Dagny, in one corner, wild gestures accompanying the sad smile on her beautiful young face. Sometimes it was hard for Lauren to remember that, despite everything they'd all been through together and all that Kenzi'd been through on her own, Kenzi was barely 24 years old.

Dyson and Vex were out, at Bo's suggestion, on a bit of a recon mission to the Light and Dark respectively, trying to find out what was going on after the day's apocalyptic event.

As Mark poured Lauren's drink, she thought he looked both elated and overwhelmed by the fact that he was now part owner of the establishment. She'd seen him sneaking some of Trick's finest liquor earlier, and saw the moment he realized that he didn't have to do that anymore. Lauren thought that he hadn't looked happy about it.

And Bo…

Bo looked like the weight of the world rested on her very lovely shoulders, and Lauren realized that, actually, it did. Bo was the most powerful Fae in the colony, and while perhaps a few had guessed that before today, now everyone knew it for certain.

Bo had been guided by her father, yes, but by Hades' hand or not, it had been Bo who had wiped out the entire city, and then brought them all back from death.

Their world was forever changed.

Lauren thought back to that moment, standing on the street with her friends and family at her side, while Bo stood over them, draining them all of their chi, seconds from killing every single one of them. In that moment, Lauren realized that while she had many regrets in her life, Bo herself was not one of them.

She had been glad that she loved Bo the way she did, did not regret meeting her, did not regret coming close to death repeatedly, did not regret the fact that loving Bo had brought her here, to this moment, where she would die at Bo's hand.

She'd always thought she'd die in Bo's arms. This was close enough.

Yet, one thing had been made abundantly clear in what she thought were her final moments.

_All this, to have come this far, and come this close to death - again - and for what? To die alone? To die without giving her what she has said over and over again that she wants? Am I that proud? That foolish?_

_What does it mean and who does it help to keep trying so hard to not give in, when she's all I really want?_

Lauren took another deep pull from her glass and looked down the bar. Bo sat a couple of stools down from Lauren, staring into her own whiskey. There was a look on her face that Lauren had never seen before. She had seen Bo happy, sad, angry, frustrated, confused, ecstatic, heartbroken - countless emotions and Lauren had loved her through them all.

She had never seen Bo look lost.

Bo was surrounded by those who loved her, yet she still looked as if she were all alone.

Bo's words at the Ancients' gathering came back to Lauren for the hundredth time, and made so much more sense. There would always be a reason that they shouldn't be together. Lauren's eyes rolled to the ceiling. It hurt to be with her and it hurt to  _not_  be with her. Why was she always choosing the path that hurt the most?

_If I'm going to hurt not matter what I do, I may as well choose the thing that makes me happy while it's breaking my heart._

"Hey," Lauren ventured, surprising herself as well as Bo. "Are you hungry?"

Bo's eyes shot up, and she looked completely taken aback.

Lauren realized her mistake, and then gave a wry smile. "For food."

Bo looked as chagrined as Lauren felt, and then gave a small, tired smile. Lauren didn't think Bo looked physically tired, but she was willing to bet that Bo was emotionally wrung out.

"I suppose I could eat," Bo said.

Lauren tipped her glass at Mark for a refill and asked him if he could whip up a couple of burgers. Kenzi shouted that she wanted one as well. Frankly, Mark looked relieved to have something to do.

Bo and Lauren sat on their stools, quietly sipping their drinks, not too close to one another, but not too far apart either.

For Lauren, the silence was pregnant with possibility. She wondered if it felt that way to Bo.

When Mark came back with both arms full of plates, they all moved to one of the bigger tables in the middle of the room, and propped the baby carrier up in one of the chairs. Kenzi started talking about nothing in particular, and soon Bo and Lauren were contributing a word here and there.

"Is it my imagination?" Mark ventured into the conversation. "Or is she bigger than she was earlier?"

Lauren had examined Tamsin's daughter less than an hour before, and agreed without looking up from her meal. "She is. She's developed to approximately the size of a three- or four-month-old human child."

Bo sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Of course she is."

"Just like her mama!" Kenzi piped up, with a forced cheerfulness that was transparent to Lauren.

They'd all nearly finished their meals when Dyson returned, and Vex not long behind him. Evidently, Elders from both sides were tripping over themselves to offer a safe haven to the Valkyrie's child, but Vex thought - and oddly again, Dyson agreed - that they were actually trying to protect themselves by keeping Hades' child in custody.

Conversation stopped when Bo spoke up.

"I will not," Bo stated as her eyes flashed, "let my sister become a chess piece between Light and Dark."

None of them responded. Lauren didn't think it was because they were surprised at her statement. No, that was classic Bo.

The deep-throated split-octave tone of the Dark Queen was a bit of a shocker, though.

Soon enough, conversation resumed. As the night wore on, they hashed out a plan for Dagny to stay hidden with Kenzi among humans, and for both of them to get out of the colony for a while. They decided that it was best for all of them to stay together in the meantime, at the Dal, until it was time to split up and take different routes to a meeting point outside of town.

From there, Kenzi would take Dagny out of town, and Dyson would make sure they weren't followed.

A few hours later, the baby was asleep. Kenzi had put some music on - something not too terribly rowdy considering the sleeping child - and Vex and Mark were laughing about something up at the bar.

Lauren sat on the couch in the lounge area, reading some messages from the clinic on her phone. She glanced up to see Dyson approach Bo where she sat once again at the bar, watched him ask her a question, nod at her answer, then move off towards Trick's - now Dyson's - lair in the basement.

She felt no jealousy anymore. Dyson was oddly subservient around Bo now. Lauren realized that he needed someone to serve, and now that person was Bo.

Those two would never have the same relationship again.

Lauren watched Bo's eyes follow Dyson, and saw a sadness on her face that made Lauren's chest hurt. And then she realized what it was she was seeing.

Bo wasn't lamenting a lost love. She was sad because she had just recognized how her relationship with Dyson had forever changed.

Bo was now, unquestionably, a leader in her own right. There were no mentors to whom she might defer - there were only advisors. Dyson and Vex were no longer her peers; they were now her lieutenants. Kenzi had always followed Bo's lead, and Mark was too young and still learning his way in the world of the Fae.

Bo needed an equal - a partner. And though she was human, Lauren now understood exactly what her own role was in all this.

Lauren had failed, and hurt this beautiful and amazing woman over and over again. Yet Lauren knew that she would reach out to Bo and ask her forgiveness because she finally -  _finally_ \- truly understood what Bo had been trying to tell her.

They belonged together.

_Who am I to deny her? Twice before, I said I would be with her, and twice I pulled away. I cannot and will not ever leave her again._

XX - XX - XX - XX - XX

Lauren watched as Dyson walked across the dirt-covered train tracks near the meeting point outside of town, letting the silence stretch until it was broken by the sound of his kick-started motorcycle. Bo hadn't said another word once she'd acknowledged that their fight with Hades was only temporarily won, and some day, he'd be back for Tamsin's daughter - and Bo's sister - and try once again to take over the mortal world.

Still, the important words had been said. Lauren had asked Bo if she'd be willing to try again. And Bo had said yes.

Lauren felt as if her body was too small to contain the pure elation she felt at the possibility of a life with Bo and climbed off the hood of the Camaro where they'd been sitting.

She had absolutely no idea what would happen next. Several of an infinite array of possibilities crossed her mind. Would Evony really find a cure? What would the Dark and Light Fae Elders do now that Bo had clearly shown she had the strength and authority to take over the colony? How long would it take Dyson to figure out whatever the hell was clearly happening between Mark and Vex?

That last thought nearly made her laugh out loud.

As for Bo, how powerful  _was_  she? What would she do with that power, now that she knew what she was capable of? For the most part, it seemed as if the experience hadn't really changed Bo - or had changed her so much, she'd come full circle, back to the woman she'd been when Lauren first met her. Unaligned, outwardly confident and sure, centered even when the outcome was unclear.

Bo had killed and revived an entire city the day before, yet not five minutes ago, had mentioned that all she really wanted was a burrito. And in Lauren's mind, the biggest question of all remained. Now that they had pledged to try again, with all that had happened, where on earth would they start?

"Are you ever going to show me where you're living now?" Bo asked, as if they had all the time in the world.

Leave it to Bo to break a huge challenge like eternal love down to the next tiny step forward.

"I don't know," Lauren replied, trying not to smile too widely. She felt so happy, she was sure she'd burst. What happened to the calm, cool, and collected doctor she used to be? Then again, what did it matter as long as she got to be with this woman she loved for as long as she possibly could? "Depends. Are you going to let me drive?"

Bo looked up, eyes flashing blue at the double entendre - intended or not - and abruptly tossed the keys at Lauren.

"You drive now," she said lowly, voice in the split octaves of her whole self. "I drive later."

Lauren laughed joyfully, blinking away elated tears, as they climbed into the car, and then she drove them towards the setting sun.

 

**EPILOGUE**

"Nice place." Bo walked around the room slowly, arms crossed over her chest. They were the first words Bo had spoken in awhile.

Bo hadn't said a word as they'd driven across town, Lauren's capable hands guiding the muscle car over city streets painted by dusk. Lauren would never admit it out loud, but she loved the oil and gas and vinyl smell of Bo's Camaro - no matter how much its very existence insulted the environment.

Now they stood at opposite sides of the large central room of Lauren's loft, navigating the terrain between them with caution.

"I've been thinking about - um," Lauren hesitated, but decided that, from this moment forward, there would be nothing between them but the truth. "I don't want to live here anymore."

Bo turned her head to look at Lauren with more scrutiny. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." This place seemed to reflect back the isolation and loneliness she'd felt living here.

Lauren walked around the room a bit. For some reason, she was keeping a little distance between herself and Bo - perhaps to give them the room they needed to clear the air. "What about you? Any thought to where you want to live now?"

Bo chuckled humorlessly. "Haven't given that much thought at all." She looked down at her feet. "Been a little busy."

Lauren thought this was, hands down, the understatement of the year.

Yet while Bo's mood was heavy, there was a lightness to her being that Lauren could clearly see. It was as if Bo had come to some sort of peace with the Dark Queen inside - something more than a truce. Almost as if all the parts of Bo - the woman raised human, the succubus grand-daughter of a blood sage, the Dark Queen empowered by the line of Ancients that was her father's family - had finally become one.

Lauren thought it a beautiful sight to see.

"What's with the security detail?" Bo asked, clearly looking down at the street.

Lauren sighed and wondered which one was "on duty" today. She'd told Eric a couple of days ago that it wasn't necessary. He'd agreed amiably, told her to enjoy her afternoon - and promptly returned to his now customary seat in the clinic's waiting room.

"I've asked them not to follow me around, but they're -" Lauren shrugged. "Persistent."

"Who are they working for? The Dark Elders?" Bo sounded suspicious.

Lauren shook her head. "That's just it. They petitioned the Elders to be released from their existing contracts so they could work supposedly for Vex, but once the release was granted, they went rogue - though I'd bet money that it was at Vex's direction." She sighed. "Right now, Bruce, Dave, Steve and Eric are all vocally unaligned." She shrugged helplessly. "I felt bad that they were out of work, so since they were hanging around anyway, I hired them to provide some security at the clinic during business hours, but they've taken my personal safety as a challenge."

Bo seemed pleased at that answer, which annoyed Lauren. She was about to argue that she could take care of herself, but honestly, they both knew she couldn't. Not all the time.

She decided a change of subject was in order.

"Any word yet from any of the Elders?" Lauren asked.

Bo sighed and finally uncrossed her arms. She leaned her backside against the back of the couch. "Not directly." Her tone turned wry. "Wouldn't want to be seen talking to the unaligned succubus." Bo appeared to finally relax a little. "Vex says the Dark Elders won't move against me - at least, not anytime soon. Dyson says the Light Elders are too afraid of me to try anything, though they're privately claiming to back the Blood King's grand-daughter."

She always fell sadly silent whenever she mentioned Trick.

"And the Blackthorn?" Lauren prompted gently. The Blackthorn was one of the most powerful Fae in the world and the head of the worldwide Fae ruling council.

Bo made a rude noise. "The Blackthorn sent an emissary to the Dal with a message for me to leave colony matters to my more experienced betters." She straightened her back. "He can either come talk to me face to face or go fuck himself."

Lauren sat down in the room's only chair. "So, in other words, just an ordinary non-apocalyptic day in the world of the Fae."

"Yeah, the usual political minefield."

Bo looked at Lauren, and for a moment, held Lauren's gaze.

Lauren leaned forward. "What do you  _want_  to do, Bo?"

It took a beat for her to respond, but then Bo laughed. "What do I want to do? I want to throw you in my car and drive as far from here as I can go, but…" She stopped, and her helplessness was written all over her face.

For once, Lauren wanted to do the same, and she could see how much Bo was held down by the weight of the impact she'd made on the colony. A colony for which she now felt responsible.

"Ok," Lauren said affably. "Let me grab a bag and we can go."

Bo looked at her sharply, as if Lauren were serious, then seemed to realize that Lauren was simply trying to cheer her up. "Wouldn't it be nice?"

Lauren stood up and walked closer. "Yeah, it would." She stopped right in front of Bo, and planted her feet so she stood between Bo's legs. "But you'd last exactly one day before you'd have to check on Dyson or Vex or - something."

Bo hung her head, but not as sadly as before. "You're right."

Lauren reached out to gently rest her hands on Bo's shoulders. "You don't have to figure it all out right now, you know."

"Yeah, but I want things to be different. If I've learned anything, it's that I've got to stand up for what I want. If I'm going to help people to live the life they choose for themselves, I've got to give them a place to do that."

"I believe in you, Bo."

Bo looked at her, then looked down, almost uncomfortably. "Lauren, I -" She pulled Lauren's hands off her shoulders and clasped them tightly in her own. "I love you, but…" Bo raised her eyes to Lauren's, and looked more vulnerable than Lauren had ever seen her. "No more secrets, Lauren. No more plans that you don't tell me, no switching sides, no toppling Morrigans or, or sleeping with people as a tactical maneuver, no more…"

She seemed flustered because she couldn't find the right words, but was determined to make her point. "No more trying to protect me without talking to me." Bo raised a hand to gently stroke Lauren's cheek. "I know we're gonna make mistakes, but I need for us to make them together." Her voice turned firm. "The only way any of this shit is going to work is if you're by my side, Lauren." Bo said. "I don't know how many ways I have to say that I need you, that I love you, that I only want you."

Bo ran out of words, but didn't drop her eyes.

Lauren placed her hand over Bo's.

"Hear this, lover," Lauren said softly. "I swear to you on all that I am…no more secrets." She cupped Bo's face with her other hand. "There's still a lot to talk about - and I have so much to tell you and even more to make up for - but know that for as long as I live, I will stand here beside you, where I belong, and that I will never leave you again."

Brown eyes flashed to blue. "Hear this." Bo's voice once again carried the resonance of her deepest self. "If you try, I will find you, for you," she paused as she wrapped her arms possessively around Lauren. "You belong to me." Her voice softened. "And I am yours."

Bo's kiss was warm, and soft, and full of promise. Their future had always been uncertain, but now they would face it together. "So." Bo smiled. "How do we start?"

Lauren pulled away but held onto Bo's hands. "How about we go find a room in that swanky hotel Kenzi mentioned?" She smiled, and for the first time in forever, felt light. "Just love me tonight. We'll solve the rest of the world's problems in the morning."

Bo smiled back. "I like the way you think, Dr. Lewis."

**_\- FIN -_ **


End file.
